In defense of Super Bowl commercials ... when executed well

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 05:03:00 +0000

There isn’t a bigger forum for television advertising than Super Bowl commercials. It was once Carnegie Hall and the Grand Ole Opry rolled into one—a place for brands and their agencies to raise the stakes and entertain the largest television audience in the world. Some of the most memorable advertisements of all time debuted on a Super Bowl broadcast. So, why was 2013 so lackluster?

Let’s roll back the clock about a dozen years. 2000’s Super Bowl XXXIV is a great case study year—one that set the stage for what ills us now. Just a few months before the dot-com boom would crash, 2000 would go down as a year when advertisers clearly went “over the top.” Flush with cash from a hot economy and an insane startup mentality, agencies convinced their clients to go big or go home. Budweiser unveiled “ Wassup,” 7-Up asked us to “ Show Us Your Can”, and a bevy of .com companies that aren’t with us today proved just how irreverent they could be thanks to work done by a lot of disruptive advertising agencies who are also not with us today. It led many critics to decry the blatant waste of media dollars and argue that advertisers needed to tone down the frenzy. In truth, it was pretty crazy.

Super Bowl on The Findings Report

In defense of Super Bowl commercials ... when executed well