It seems like this year's collection of Super Bowl commercials was more about the ads that didn't air than the ones that did.
The most noteworthy example is that of PETA: in a brilliant and transparent publicity move, they made a commercial too racy for prime time, and used the resulting publicity from being banned by NBC to their advantage. When I wrote about that ad last week, equal numbers of commenters thought the ad was too explicit (and didn't do much to further the cause of vegetarianism) as those who thought the ad was no racier than the stuff we already see during the game. It was also apparent that the economy had taken a bite out of companies' advertising budgets - so many of the ads that ran were filler from NBC. But in the mix there were a few ads for green causes - watch them below, and let me know which ones were your favorites (or if you thought they were all lame) in the comments.
The greenest ad of the evening was for GE wind power, and was pretty cute:
Another green ad from GE promoted smart grid technology to the tune of The Wizard of Oz's "If I Only Had a Brain":
Pedigree reminds us that shelter dogs make great pets - better ones than oxen, rhinos, or ostriches:
And then there was this tragedy of a Pepsi commercial. I'm including it because will.i.am is a celebrity who is very outspoken for environmental causes, and just wrote a new song, "Take Our Planet Back." But the idea that will.i.am is on par with Bob Dylan seems pretty presumptuous to me.
What did you think of this year's commercials?
Reader Comments Read all comments (2)
Payprophy of AL 4:10AM April 08, 2010
Debib of TN 4:47PM February 02, 2009