Superbowl Commercials

            Superbowl is known as being the best time to air and watch commercials. Companies pay profuse amounts in order to fill a 30-second commercial spot during one of the most watched televised events of the year. Lately however, the commercials have been lacking in the comedy and entertainment they were once known for. Sure, some still tickle funny bones, and yet, the majority is not quite what the commercials of years past used to be.

            The best commercials played during the Superbowl were surprisingly few. The only one that actually made me laugh was an Ameriquest commercial entitled “Robbed.” In it, a man is inside a convenience store purchasing some items while on the phone. He is using his headset, so the phone is not in sight. While talking to the person on the phone, he says that the price for the deck is too expensive. As he walks to the counter to pay, he reaches in his jacket for his wallet and tells the person on the phone “I hate to tell you this, but you’re getting robbed.” Static must have interrupted because he says to his headset, “Did you hear me? I said you’re getting robbed.” The cashier, with his back to the gentleman, looks at the security camera and sees the man with his hand in his jacket and suddenly turns around and sprays mace on the man. He grabs a baseball bat and starts hitting him. His wife then runs out with a stun gun and shocks him until he falls to the ground. The message in the end is not to judge too quickly because Ameriquest won’t. Another commercial that was pretty decent was the Diet Pepsi commercial with Diddy because it parodies real life. In it, Diddy’s car breaks down and he hitches a ride with a man in a Diet Pepsi truck. When he pulls up to the awards show in the truck, it causes a stir with all the celebrities. Suddenly, everyone is driving in large souped-up Diet Pepsi trucks because they think that it is the new thing to drive in Hollywood. Since Hollywood is into the trucks, next thing you know, the nation has caught up to the craze and all you see are Diet Pepsi trucks. Diddy is in awe because of the new craze he inadvertently started. It has a level of truth to it, which I found somewhat entertaining, because truth of the matter is that when a celebrity is seen in something, no matter how ridiculous, it usually catches on as the newest fad.

            The worst Superbowl commercials aired were pretty much the rest of them. I found the Career Builder commercials with the chimps to be unoriginal, and quite frankly, annoying. There were just so many of them. Also, the Bubblicious commercial with LeBron James was just plain boring. It was just him popping a piece of gum and running around the court. New ideas really need to be come up with when basketball players are used for commercials. The Ciba Vision commercial was also very uninteresting, not to mention seeming completely out of place to be played during the Superbowl. It seems like that sort of commercial should be shown in the morning between the Price is Right and the Ellen DeGeneres show. The Olympus commercials with the guy dancing were also weirdly annoying. They were reminiscent of the Mitsubishi Eclipse commercials that had the girl dancing in the passenger seat. FedEx’s “Ten Things” commercial was trying way too hard to be witty, which absolutely backfired. All in all, the remaining commercials were not very entertaining; possibly because the rest of them reminded me of commercials that have already been played before. Their advertising needs to be revamped with creative, new, ideas that have hilarious twists unexpected for the company and its brand.

 

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