Super Bowl Recap

By now you're probably weary of the game, the commercials, and the endless analysis, so I'll just point to some underpublicized stories.

Slate ad critic Seth Stevenson has a good summary of the best and worst ads. I loved his take on the ballyhooed Tim Tebow/Focus on the Family spot, which turned out to be innocuous:

This is a Super Bowl ad in which the entirety of the message is that Tim Tebow's mommy loves him. It's sort of like when your mom bought that half-page spread in the program for your elementary school graduation—except this cost $2.5 million, reached a national audience, and was paid for by someone else.

Judge for yourself here, after the jump.

Yes, I agree with just about everyone that Bridgestone's "Your Tires or Your Life" ad was misogynistic and possibly deranged. Also, Bridgestone has literacy issues.

I liked Google's "Parisian Love" spot, both for its clever storytelling and for the way it made me want to freeze the picture to find out how did they do that? (Clearly, my search skills can use some fine tuning.) Turns out that ad, which has been running for several months, is one of a series. The spot with the fewest viewings—under 5,000 when I checked yesterday—is the Kerouac-inspired "Mad to Live," and it's my favorite. Watch all seven Google spots on the Search Stories channel. (Just for fun, check out the Upright Citizens Brigade parody, "Parisian Oops.")

But the ad that made this word nerd go all mushy inside was the admittedly silly one for HomeAway, a vacation-rental company I'd never heard of until Sunday. Yeah, it was a little creepy to see Chevy Chase looking like Beverly D'Angelo's father, fer cryin' out loud,  in a reprise of their roles as the Griswolds from National Lampoon's Vacation. But if you aren't moved by the desk clerk's spelling lesson (at about :22), you're made of sterner stuff than I. My compliments to HomeAway's agency, Publicis of the West.

Comments

[twitter.com/NextMoon]

Love your take on the ads. My favorite was the Google ad, but I didn't realize that it was part of a series. Thanks for the link!

The HomeAway ad was clever on so many levels, including the naming of the diminutive Napoleon suite and a new take on "scenic view." BTW - did you notice the fine print on the tagline at the end of the HomeAway ad? Half the cost of a hotel, based on a comparison of cost per square foot -- another clever use of language.