My Three Favorite Super Bowl Ad-Related Stories

As we bask in the afterglow of the latest most-watched television event in U.S. history, here are my three favorite advertising-related stories to come out of the Super Bowl (not counting the predictable hyperventilation over the outrageous offensiveness of some ads):

1. Ford’s demand that GM pull ad with the gall to poke fun at Ford.

Nice work on the PR front, folks. Do you really, seriously believe that in a commercial featuring flying saucers, raining frogs (PETA … you’re slipping …) amid an apocalyptic cataclysm predicted by Mexican stone carvers who ran out of space on their calendar, that we really care (much less believe) which truck is the longest-lasting, most dependable, yadda yadda yadda?

Oh, that’s right. You do believe this. You believe this so strongly that you will provide your competitor with publicity worth infinitely more than the $7 million or so GM thought it was spending to place that ad. You believe that I am going to make a decision about buying a truck because a guy in a make-believe end-of-world scenario tells me I should. While he’s munching on a post-apocalyptic Twinkie. C’mon folks, at least throw some J.D. Power stats at me. Something? Anything?

Nice work, everybody. Take the rest of the year off. We’re all doomed anyway.

The obvious message we should take from this little comic episode is: All lawyers are evil. (Except the one I’m married to.)

2. Chrysler’s disappearing “Halftime in America” ad.

This was strange. Chrysler hires Dirty Harry to star in and narrate what I thought was a really good ad – a gritty, sorta feel-good ad that promoted stuff like Detroit, optimism, resilience, hope and, you know, Chrysler. (Guess Clint’s no longer associating himself with Fords.) Nice little pun with “halftime” (that’s when it aired during the game), and you have a creative, moving piece.

Except that suddenly, immediately after the game, the ad was nowhere to be found on YouTube. As the WSJ pointed out, this was a huge blow to Chrysler because unlike most other spots, this ad hadn’t been made available on the Web prior to the Super Bowl. So post-game hits, when the ad was fresh in viewers’ minds, were crucial.

So what happened? Google (which owns YouTube) said it received a “take down” notice from a third party claiming to be authorized by the NFL. The idea was that since the NFL owns the game – and therefore the halftime of the game – that everything that aired during halftime was protected by copyright and owned by the NFL.

Only in this case … that was wrong. The Chrysler ad was not an actual part of the halftime, so the NFL had no more rights to it than they did to any other commercial that appeared during the game. The ad finally reappeared on YouTube late Monday morning, and you could make the case that it’s generating even more views now than it would have if this mistake hadn’t been made.

But that’s not the big problem. The big problem, as Jalopnik pointed out in an excellent summary of the episode, is that this is a sneak preview of the probable outcome should SOPA and PIPA ever stumble into law. Some guy emailed Google – in error, whether intentionally or otherwise – and without providing a shred of evidence (because there wasn’t any) to back up the copyright claim, had Chrysler’s video pulled.

Think about the same thing happening again, only this time sanctioned by law. (My friend David Meerman Scott summed everything up nicely last month in this appropriately castigating post.) The Eastwood ad episode serves as a practical example, and, I hope, a warning and a deterrent. Too bad Chrysler paid the penalty.

3. I will hire Will Ferrell TODAY, not tomorrow, to advertise for me.

In what appears to be a brilliant stroke of viral marketing, Old Milwaukee beer placed a single ad, in a single local market – North Platte, Nebraska – during the Super Bowl, starring Ferrell. In the ad, he makes a long walk through a golden field of wildflowers, and as he nears the camera someone tosses him an Old Milwaukee. He opens it (it sprays everywhere), holds up the beer and says, “Old M –”

That’s all he gets out, because the commercial ends at that point. If you know anything about Will Ferrell, you know the truncation was intentional. We also know this because the name of the spot is actually “Field Cut Off.”

I cannot begin to express to you how utterly awesome I think this is as a marketing strategy. Pabst, which owns Old Milwaukee, paid next to nothing to advertise in North Platte (I’ve been there several times, they got their money’s worth) and from this one small placement I’m certain the ROI is absolutely enormous. (It’s actually infinity, as you’ll see in a minute.)

The commercial became something of a mystery – people might have heard a rumor about it from a friend, or seen it referenced on the Web somewhere, but whatever the reason, it started generating interest and some major traffic. CNN reported on it. Of course, Deadspin had it.

So naturally, I did exactly what Old Milwaukee was hoping I’d do, which is that I discovered that Ferrell has been doing simple, hilarious ads for the beer for quite awhile now. Who knew? (You knew? Yeah, right.)

He’s gone fishing in the Mississippi River in Davenport, awakened after a binge on a rooftop in Terre Haute, and tossed a can of Cold Mil from atop the Pabst building in Milwaukee, among other things.

And here’s the thing: Ferrell did all these ads for free (they were his idea, actually), because he’s Will Ferrell, and he does stuff like this, which is what makes him fantastic. AdWeek covered the story back in December when the first videos began surfacing – posted solely by fans, by the way, not by Pabst. At the time, the article gave the ads only so-so reviews as viral vehicles, but that has surely changed since Sunday.

Anyway, I love everything about this. Even the beer, which was a staple of our summer softball league team growing up in Chicago. In recent years, Pabst Blue Ribbon has enjoyed a major renaissance as a slightly-upscale-yet-blue-collar substitute for Budweiser. Could Will Ferrell be helping Old Milwaukee do the same? And doing it gratis?

I like this so much I’m prepared to forgive him for Step Brothers.

Taking The Offensive

So, the Super Bowl happened yesterday, and besides the fact that it was a terrific football game, the thing we are hearing about the most today is, of course, the commercials.

And while the debates rage (I guess) all over the country and all over the world about which were the best and worst, one word keeps bubbling up to the surface: offensive.

Boy, oh boy, were people offended.

Women, mostly, seem to be the aggrieved parties. This is, I guess, since the Super Bowl demographic is largely (though far from exclusively) male, so most of the ads are targeting guys. And since Super Bowl ads typically have the subtlety of  – in the immortal words of Colonel Sherman T. Potter – a community bedpan, the potential clearly exists for women to feel as though they aren’t being targeted.

So, Fiat offended women. So did Teleflora. Of course GoDaddy did; that’s what GoDaddy does. (WARNING: WEB CONTENT UNRATED!) The talking baby did. I can’t think of an example offhand, but Bud Light probably did somewhere in there. Even the M&Ms ad was offensive. Bad candies!

Taking the whole matter of Super Bowl advertising aside, it struck me (it usually does during election years) that deep down we want to be offended. Men too, by the way, although my utterly unscientific, horse-sense-y sense is that the take-offense instinct is somewhat more prevalent in the gentler sex. (Sorry if I offended you, missy. Quod erat demonstrandum!)

I think it’s because everybody has a soapbox, and every soapbox needs a foil. No one will care if you shout from the rooftops that it’s sunny today or that teddy bears are cute. It’s kind of like posting “TGIF!!!!!” on Facebook. It’s weightless.

But once you’ve got an axe to grind, baby, you’re off to the races. Merriam-Webster defines “offend” as “to transgress the moral or divine law.” Wow, that’s heavy. Who knew little colored candies were TRANSGRESSING MORAL LAW?

Forgive the hyperbole (more on that in a minute) … I suppose the more applicable definition is “to cause dislike, anger, or vexation.” I’ll buy that. But while I do in fact dislike mushrooms, they don’t offend me. And while I was momentarily vexed by the Fiat commercial, I quickly recovered and figured out, oh, it’s a car ad.

And that’s my point. (There is one! Thanks for hanging around.) I think we overuse “offense” quite a lot. The hyperbole surrounding a lot of comments I read regarding some of these Super Bowl ads was really … amusing, actually. (“I wanted to vomit!” screamed one overheated commenter about a commercial. Seriously? Bad guac?)

I think we can be bothered by something – advertising, a random email, rap lyrics, whatever – without ranting and raving about being offended. It takes quite a lot to genuinely offend me, and I think that’s how it should be. I save my greatest indignation for things that matter. An ad for Web domains does not make the cut.

But “offense” is a hot-button word, especially in this hyper-political climate. People are offended by Wall Street (and the rest by Occupy Wall Street), they’re offended by pro-choicers, they’re offended by pro-lifers, they’re offended about illegal immigrants, they’re offended by Donald Trump. (OK, bad example.)

As we get closer to November, I don’t think you’ll be able to swing a dead cat without hitting somebody who’s offended by something or other. (No offense … I have two cats, both alive and rarely swung.)

The real problem, to me, is that once we announce that we’re offended, we’ve officially ended the discussion. You have offended me, so please go away and take your offensive notions or attitude or belief system and go offend someone else with it. Seeya on MSNBC or FOX News.

At that point there’s no more debate, no more discussion. No more communication. Again, I’m not saying there aren’t things that are worthy of such indignation – I saw things in Zimbabwe that genuinely offended me a few weeks ago – but my humble suggestion would be to ease up on taking offense. Don’t be offended by a little piece of candy that might or might not be naked. However, if you are offended, do something about it. Don’t just go back to eating beef jerky and shopping online.

Among the places Twitter blew up last night and today was at the hashtag #notbuyingit, which is where we all gathered to be offended together. Amid the overwrought overreactions to 30-second presentations in the middle of a really entertaining football game was one polite tweet that sums up the right attitude for me: “It would be better for men, women, boys & girls if there were more humor & less objectification in #superbowl ads today.” (I agree, by the way.)

Save your outrage for the things that matter. I know some people who are offended by so much, all the time, that they’re just crying wolf now and I can’t even hear them. If you’re one of them … and you happen to be reading this … and I’ve offended you … well, lighten up, buddy.

A Sartorial Symphony of Sloth

It was inevitable, I suppose. The Snuggie has devolved. Meet the cousin nobody likes to talk about:

It’s a stirring tribute to inertia. Others might disagree, but for my money (ONLY $29.95 PLUS SHIPPING) if there’s a more humiliating article of clothing in existence, I’d like to know what it is.

Wait, I take that back.

One Small Step … For Natty Light

To paraphrase Milton Berle, sort of: Some people love wine; they’re called oenophiles. Other people love beer; they’re called … people who love beer. I am a person who loves beer.

Not in the I’ve-got-five-free-minutes-let’s-get-a-sixer, keg-stand-y way. I enjoy good beers. Really good beers. I suppose you could call me a geek or a snob; I prefer “enthusiast.”

And it was the beer enthusiast in me that died a little when I saw this video:

The first beer launched into space could have been any number of terrific choices. Natural Light was not among them. (Given the restriction that it needed to be available in a can, I probably would’ve gone with Ten Fidy from Oskar Blues brewery in Colorado, an incredible imperial stout, personal favorite of mine and many others.)

Taste aside, however, from a marketing perspective, the choice was absolutely perfect. As the video indicates, the idea arose from Natty Light’s Facebook campaign, which gave average folks like you and me the opportunity to do something “epic” with the beer. It set the tone right away – you’re the beer drinker, you decide (in effect) how we should market this product.

Secondly, the video succeeds for the specific reason that my initial reaction was to take mock-offense: It’s an Everyman beer, and, in a twisted sort of way, elicits the same response from the viewer that watching Neil Armstrong descend the steps of the lunar module did. That wasn’t a celebration of Neil Armstrong, it was a celebration of American ingenuity. This isn’t a triumph of some truly delicious, but elitist, bourbon-barrel-aged Belgian quadruple. You can relate.

And last, the simple imagery itself is something that Natty Light should be able to leverage for a long, long time. Its authenticity adds to the amazement: We just watched that beer can float into space. That Natural Light beer can. Personally I’ll remember the image of that Natty Light can bobbing gently, 90,000 miles above the earth, for a long, long time. Which is the idea.

So I say, Bravo, Natty Light. Through gritted teeth, but it’s there. Well done.