Michelin's Super Bowl Spot Wants You to Go Here

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Here's where Michelin's Super Bowl spot will point you on game day. Perhaps it's because we just returned from the place, but this site makes us feel like we're in the middle of a combination of Disney World rides. While the swirling camera animation is very cool, we're not quite sure what the site's trying to tell us. But don't listen to us. We're squarely in the "don't waste time fucking around with distracting, cool shit. Just tell us what you're fucking selling" category.

UPDATE: OK, now we get it. The site's just video from the commercial (which ran pre-game Super Bowl 2007). The commercial makes sense because there's voiceover. Maybe the website needs a voiceover too.

by Steve Hall    Feb- 2-07    
Topic: Good, Online, Super Bowl 2007



Overweight, Sex-Changed Miller Cat Fight 'Girls' Back For Super Bowl

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OK, this is just gross. There's a reason why hot women (and men) are allowed to take their shirts off and strut their stuff for the general public's appreciation. That's the reason why that 2003 Miller Catfight Super Bowl spot received so much notoriety. While Miller did create a male hottie version of the pool/mud wrestling spot, the two guys in that ad stopped short of having an actual fight and got all "sensitive man" on us to which, we wrote, "Oh please...can't they just beat the shit out of each other like the girls did in the mud wrestling spot?"

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by Steve Hall    Feb- 2-07    
Topic: Bad, Brands, Commercials, Creative Commentary, Super Bowl 2007



Nationwide Commercial Gets K-Fed Taco Bell Job Offer

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In a witty ploy for press, Taco Bell, unlike other fast food brands who have derided Nationwide's depiction of the fast food career as less than desirable, has offered a job to Kevin Federline and the promise of a customized Taco Bell uniform. Taco Bell CEO Greg Creed sent this offer letter:

Dear Mr. Federline,

First off, congratulations on your upcoming Super Bowl ad. We heard it's generating a lot of talk, particularly about working in the fast food industry.

We know you respect those who work in our business. In fact, last year you said in an interview, "My kids are going to have to learn what a real job is, what life is. You don't have it easy with me. Period. My kids are going to work at Taco Bell."

We're flattered, but obviously they're too young to work for us. So here's our offer to you: Come work for us, just for a one hour shift. We'll get you a uniform, a custom name tag and show you what a great place Taco Bell is to work. We'll even reward customers who visit that restaurant with an order of our new Carne Asada Steak Grilled Taquitos for free.

We encourage you to continue to "Think Outside the Bun" and hope you accept our tasty offer.

Sincerely,
Greg Creed
President
Taco Bell Corp.

Now, that's the kind of marketing think we respect and appreciate.

by Steve Hall    Feb- 2-07    
Topic: Brands, Celebrity, Good, Strange, Super Bowl 2007



GM Fires Production Line Robots In Super Bowl Commercial

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Here's some GM Super Bowl commercial leaky leak that, if we're understanding the commercial correctly, claims robots won't build cars anymore because they aren't as good as humans. Hmm. Can anyone imagine a GM production line staffed entirely by humans with no assist from those cool, yellow robots? i guess we'll find out during the game.

UPDATE: The robot has...drumroll please...a blog!

by Steve Hall    Feb- 2-07    
Topic: Brands, Commercials, Good, Super Bowl 2007



Pause Resumes, Girlfriend Loved, Guerrilla Banned, Sprint Teases

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- FOX has released its second Ignited Minds-created PSA in its Pause campaign which urges young people to stop and think before they make a stupid decision.

- Can we please stop with the pregnant stomach advertising auctions?

- Copyranter loves his girlfriend. We do too!

- Reaching new levels of un-informed stupidity, Boston's Mayor Menino now wants to ban all guerilla marketing from Boston, saying, "This nitwit technique has no place in our city."

- Now we have ads to promote Super Bowl ads. Sprint is running a teaser on YouTube for their Super Bowl activity.

by Steve Hall    Feb- 2-07    
Topic: Commercials, Guerilla, Super Bowl 2007



AHA Buys Super Bowl Time, Sidesteps Product

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After spending $4.2 million on a couple of spots in the uber-competitive ad orgy called Super Bowl, you naturally want some serious run for your money. But not everybody takes the expected measures to ensure an ROI.

Adrants reader Roy points us to this interesting story about the American Heart Association, who paid the Super Bowl invoice and dropped still more cash to produce light-hearted cautionary piece "Heart Attack," then did something odd: they neglected to mention the product, heart drug Altace.

"I don't think it is appropriate to have some guy in a white lab coat staring into the audience saying, 'You are going to die if you eat another chicken wing,'" says Rebecca Sroge, executive VP and managing director of Glow Worm, the agency that created "Heart Attack."

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by Angela Natividad    Feb- 2-07    
Topic: Good, Packaging, Super Bowl 2007



GoDaddy Says 'Basic Instinct,' CBS Says 'Try Again'

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Every year we have to endure the painful submit, reject, submit, reject saga GoDaddy forces us to live through as it tries to get the network to accept its commercial for the Super Bowl. No one's in the dark here. Everyone knows Go Daddy CEO Bob Parsons is submitting ads he knows will be rejected simply to get the press that rejection generates. And, dammit, he has us doing it too with his latest reject, a Basic Instinct-style spot in which Candice Michelle does the Sharon Stone leg cross thing while some dude voiced by Philip Baker Hall. Oh the pain Parsons puts us through. Oh wait. Candice is kind of interesting to watch.

by Steve Hall    Feb- 1-07    
Topic: Commercials, Racy, Super Bowl 2007



BlogAds Powers Ads With RSS, Google Wallows in Profit

- Advertising Age shifts into high Super Bowl gear with its Full Coverage section of Super Bowl Ads 2007.

- Google's quarterly profits have tripled. Funny how AdSense publishers' profits haven't tripled as well.

- BlogAds has introduced a new ad unit that receives part of its content from an RSS feed. New, fact, figures, product, info and basically anything can be fed into the ad unit in a continually updated manner.

- Yawn. Yet another Grounghog Day promotion.

by Steve Hall    Feb- 1-07    
Topic: Online, RSS, Super Bowl 2007, Weblogs



Super Bear Shuffle Revisits Chicago Bears' Super Bowl Shuffle

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OK, so this isn't exactly a Super Bowl ad but it's kinda fun. Adrants reader Benjamin George tells us it's a "parody of the 1985 Chicago Bears' Super Bowl Shuffle with Yogi, Boo Boo, Smokey, Pooh, and other cartoon bears." For anyone that was around in 1985, we suppose it'll bring back some memories. Or nightmares. Called Super Bear Shuffle, it was created by Big Game Hunters.

by Steve Hall    Feb- 1-07    
Topic: Strange, Super Bowl 2007, Video



VoteVets Says Stop Iraq with One-Handed Man

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Okay, there's more than just a one-handed man in the spot we're about to show you, but for us that's what stuck out, and we think that's what they wanted because they saved him for last.

Veteran group VoteVets is raising money to put this MoveOn-supported ad on air during the Super Bowl. It's meant to stop the escalation with the same (occasionally effective) psychological tactic 15-year-old boys use to get girls to put out in the backseat of cars: If you support escalation, you don't support the troops.

Click the above link to help them raise money, or just watch a series of vets try making you feel real real bad. Like we said, it's a fairly effective method.

by Angela Natividad    Jan-31-07    
Topic: Good, Super Bowl 2007, Television