Tuned In

The Best and Worst Super Bowl Ads

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Last night’s Super Bowl turned out to be an exciting game, which unfortunately drew valuable attention away from the commercials. I aim to rectify that with my annual review of the Super Bowl ads, now up at time.com. Plow through it if you dare: nearly every ad aired during the game is there (with video thanks to the heroic efforts of the time.com staff), with the exceptions of locally airing ads. As usual, I sat down and watched the ads on TiVo as the game ran (excepting a few I saw in advance), which means I watched about 15 minutes of actual football. But it looks like that was the good 15 minutes. 

There was a big theme this year (the economy is in the toilet) and some familiar motifs (animals, violence). There were a few ads I liked a lot (Hulu, that bizarre Cash4Gold spot), a few I hated (GoDaddy, Denny’s notwithstanding the free-breakfast offer), and a whole lot in the squishy middle. My reviews are entirely subjective, though I try to pay some attention to the effectiveness of the pitch. But I am by no means an advertising professional, just a guy who buys things. Even diet cola, at apparent risk to my masculinity.

Any thoughts on the ads, on Bruce, or on (oh, yeah) the game?