CBS has officially sold out all of its Super Bowl spots for this Sunday’s game, and we know gifted Agency Spy readers are behind many great commercials. So, all you creative geniuses, show yourselves! Tell us about the blood, sweat and tears that went into your Pièce de résistance that will be airing during the game. Send your name, agency, client and a video of the spot (we promise we won’t air videos until after the game) to either agencyspy at gmail dot com, or agencyspychi at gmail dot com.
Yesterday Nielsen reported that 94.5 million of you turned on the Super Bowl. Naturally, the Web erupted with chatter about how this year’s game grabbed fewer eyes than last year when Fox pulled in 97 million. But, what about all those online eyeballs watching via Justin.tv, Hulu and all the ad-hype leading up to the game? That’s got to count for something, right? NBC thinks so, and according to MediaWeek reports that at some point, as many as 147 million people tuned into the game.
Seemingly having overlooked the online ratings, AdAge titled its story on the subject, “Super Bowl Advertisers Paid More, Got Less.” Well, that’s certainly true if you only consider TV. The publication, as well as AgencySpy and countless others posted ads weeks before they ran during the Super Bowl — those clicks count for something.
Take the Doritos campaign as another example — by letting the public create ads, the snack maker stirred up brand awareness months before the game. And it paid off, with a USA Today poll ranking the user generated spot as number one above all the others. Imagine that — two relative nobodies beating the entire field — and they did it for free.
Apparently, Nielsen isn’t much of a crystal ball when it comes to measuring true readership.
This issue has been stirring up for a while now — online versus TV and the measurement of each. Though the Web was once a secondary landing space for advertisers, companies like NBC and FOX have forced the transition that’s been coming for a few years — making the Web a primary competitor for TV. How Neilsen could discount that Web is beyond us, and it’s absurd that any publication would publish a report indicating that the game was a bust.
Last night, NBC resembled an eight year-old kid with A.D.D. hopped up on pixie stix and Pepsi. A lot of Pepsi. Pepsi Max, Diet Pepsi and even SNL cast member Will Forte, aka MacGruber, aka Pepsuber. As expected it was a shill-fest to end all others — NBC left no white space un-sponsored, even shoved its own brand down your throats like so many male nether-parts in a slightly uncomfortable bukakke scene.
One promo (or, was it a commercial?) for NBC caught our attention because it was out of place, awkward and short-sighted. NBC used a sketch from SNL called ‘MacGruber’ — well, they used the second of the three-part gag. Actor/writer Will Forte stars as a wanna-be MacGyver who despite having the skills to disarm a bomb that’s always about to explode, inevitably gets to rambling until *cue punchline* the bomb explodes.
But this time, what keeps him from disarming the bomb is a strange new love of Pepsi. When the three parts of this sketch are played in succession, the gag works well enough. MacGruber, Vicky and the actual MacGyver face certain doom — but MacGruber assures the pair that everything he needs to disarm the bomb is in the room they’re locked in.
MacGruber is going to save the day! But first, a Pepsi break. Wakka wakka. OK fine. The second and third versions go on like this, in a steep crescendo of Pepsiness that leads MacGyver to ask, “are you sponsored by Pepsi or something?” It gets so ugly that MacGruber mentions the “Refresh Everything” campaign. Forte as MacGruber: “I am 100% my own man! By the way I had my name legally changed to Pepsuber.” Yeah, we know.
But worse than anything seen in the sketch is NBC’s use of the second (note: the videos are ordered 1-3 top to bottom) bit during last night’s game. Was it a promo? Was it a commercial for Pepsi? Did NBC cross the line and mix the two? We wonder what response NBC was hoping for, because it was a muddled mess.
Yet another gaffe: they played the second part of the skit rather than the first. The second installment is much more Pepsied out than the first, which gives the promo that aforementioned amorphous-blob feel. Bleck.
We hear that NBC intended to air the first part, but at the last minute opted for number two. Hmm. Did Pepsi toss NBC some extra cash to make that happen? That’s the only conclusion that makes sense to us, because the Pepsi brand does nothing to help MacGruber — or SNL — other than fuel critics’ “SNL’s originality is dead” argument.
A blog has popped up whose sole purpose is to poke Pepsi’s new ‘Optimism’ campaign in the eye. We’re down with that. Check out more from ReflushEverything.com, here.
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