“Hyundai is really winning points for its broad, populist humor,” said Tim Cawley, a creative director at Hill Holliday/Boston. “That kind of humor used to belong to Pepsi and Bud Light. This year, it’s as though Hyundai came in out of nowhere and crashed the party. Their stuff has been really, really good, really surprising and they got the big Super Bowl thing.”
At an estimated $3.8 million for a 30-second spot, Super Bowl ads don’t come cheap, and success isn’t guaranteed.
To work, a Super Bowl ad need a certain spark and a touch of restraint.
“The Super Bowl is such a beautiful, crass, over-the-top example of American consumerism, but don’t try and sell something,” Cawley said. “Everybody’s just tuning in for pure, unadulterated entertainment.’
Coca-Cola’s “Security” ad, which shows footage of people being really, really nice to each other, had that something special, said Melissa Lea, president of Blitz Media.
“With everything that’s going on now, the security and watching people and the lack of privacy, it managed to capture the good in all that, as opposed to the evil,” she said.
Cawley gave high marks to BlackBerry, the embattled smart phone maker whose pricey ad took an unexpected twist, by telling viewers what it couldn’t do.
“It was funny, and it took a lot of guts to say, ‘We’re here and don’t forget about us,” he said.
Amongst the hits, there were many misses.
Small Army CEO Jeff Freedman and Hill Holliday creative director Joe Berkeley both panned the GoDaddy ad featuring supermodel Bar Refaeli kissing a nerd. It was the company’s way of saying its both smart and sexy.
“I thought it was nasty,” Berkeley said.
Dennis Franczak, CEO at FUSEideas, a Boston-based advertising firm, said a Jeep commercial got a “universal dud” at his Super Bowl party.
“Oprah did the voice over, and the message was about supporting the troops, but you could totally tell they were trying to put the Jeep as the hero, not the troops, so it felt insincere,” he said.
Source: Boston Herald
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