After careful consideration and watching, well, hours of ads — tweeting the whole time — we’ve come to some conclusions on the commercials featured in Super Bowl XLIII. There were some hits but largely this seemed like an off year. Whether this was due to the economy or not, the creative seemed off and some of the advertisers an odd fit. Overall, this blogger’s choice for best of show was the above offering from Career Builder which will no doubt be earning heaps of adulation in the days and weeks ahead.
What was so special about it? Simply put, it was 1. funny (not an easy feat), 2. repetitious which also made it very 3. memorable and 4. it continued to communicate Career Builder as the premier job search site which, sadly, more folks are probably looking at these days, thus rendering their message incredibly relevant. Were I to narrow it down further, I would probably say that what made this spot effective was it’s clever use of repetition. If you’ll note, this is a 0:60-second spot. Dean always says that with a 0:60 you use the added time for what’s often called a “teaching message” – or telling a longer story. Career Builder did something different. They started with a very basic story which they repeated probably half a dozen times, each time adding a more absurd manifestation of job frustration.
Some other standouts include:
- Most Saavy Use of Media: Miller High Life – a one-second spot?!? Laugh it off but it cost less than all the others but it also generated buzz and had folks checking out the outtakes that didn’t make the cut on YouTube.
- Best Entertainment Ad: Hulu – a rare spot from my favorite free TV site. Plus Alec Baldwin as an alien who will scoop my brain out with a melon baller!
- Best Automotive: Hyundai – with their Genesis and Assurance program ads they staked ownership not so much via their ad creative but rather with their stacked up placements early on in the show.
And by the way — who else is sick of the stale Go Daddy and E*Trade spots?
Happy Super Bowl XLIII!
