Posts Tagged ‘GoDaddy.com’

First of all, congratulations to the New York Giants and Most Valuable Player Eli Manning. Here are a few highlights from the game; that is to say the Super Bowl spots. First up, here were my ground rules. The spots had to be, quote unquote, Super Bowl ads: Ads imbued with a creativity that would get you to want to watch them again and would stand on their own for pure entertainment value. Being shown for the first time, clock stoppers, buzz creators. And they had to either build the brand, create memorable awareness or introduce a new product in an engaging way.

Kicking off with the last criteria first: Pepsi MAX, LEXUS GS, Amp and especially, TIDE to GO, all passed the test.

COKE scored twice on two tries. (A shout out to ADWEEK’s Barbara Lippert.) Although, I have a warm spot in my heart for the MACY’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and Charlie Brown, I thought the second entry of the day for COKE was spot on. Keeping completely true to one of its enduring brand attributes of connecting people, it featured the odd couple of James Carville and Bill Frist bonding and bounding about in D.C. (I guess the Ragin’ Cajun excels at the Odd Couple thing.) Money well spent here, as this topical commercial will play well throughout the rest of this politically charged year.

Tackling almost all of my criteria for a great Super bowl ad was this hard hitting spot for Doritos. I have to admit I laughed out loud. BTW: Was that “cheesy” mouse on steroids?

Possibly the best spot for directing people to a Website was from the folks at GoDaddy.com . (I know Donny Deutsch would agree.) The spot was on the money for this relatively new strategy of being produced primarily to drive traffic to a site a/s/a/p. (As of this post they had over a million and a half hits.)

The GoDaddy spot was the only one I watched prior to the game. Otherwise, I avoided previewing ads on You Tube and other sites so as not to watch them out of context. I wanted to experience them with the full impact of seeing the spots for the first time in all of the communal anxious anticipation of a Super Bowl commercial break.

Honorable mentions go to BUD Light, Amp and Logitech’s HARMONY, a universal remote. (Congratulations to Logitech’s Tom Henry.)

Several commercials, too many in fact, were Super Bowl-esque but missed the up rights. They wasted at least $2.7 million in air time, to say nothing for production costs. Without sacking the teams of people who undoubtedly labored long and hard (or maybe not), penalty flags for Toyota, FedEx, E*Trade, Cars.com, Sobe’s Lifewater, Career Builders.com and Salesgenie.com. Arguably the worst one of the day: Planters . I’m not sure when I’ll be able to eat cashews again.

Having said all of that, let’s end on a high note. If spots could kill and speaking of super, nothing stopped the clock in the 4th quarter like Brazilian super super model Adriana Lima, pigskin in hand, for Victoria’s Secret . (I was observed to be drooling during the spot, although I could have sworn it was beads of sweat.)

Obviously produced to play late in the game, more than any other spot, it met my criteria for being tailor made for the Super Bowl. To top it all off, they concluded this brand builder with a call to action by planting a seed to buy lingerie for Valentine’s Day, only a week and a half away. Kudos to CMO Jill Beraud. It was a perfect 10.