Hasta La Ideas

The Super Bowl is an epic event for both football fans and advertisers alike: with millions of viewers in America settling down to watch the game, it offers an opportunity for brands to show off their finest TV spots of the year. Or so we hope. Here’s our pick of what was on offer in the ad breaks of yesterday’s battle between the Giants and the Patriots…

Chevy had some great offerings at this year’s Super Bowl. Stunt Anthem, above, saw the Chevy Sonic performing a number of crazy stunts, such as bungee jumping and skydiving. The music video mentioned in the spot is the one below, for OK Go, which has already proved a massive online success on its own. Stunt Anthem was by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.

According to the YouTube info, this video was all shot for real, with OK Go’s Damian taking stunt driving lessons for the shoot. More info and behind-the-scenes footage is at letsdothis.com. Director: Brian L Perkins, Damian Kulash Jr.

Also from Chevy and GS&P is this epic comedic spot which sees Chevy Silverado drivers become the only ones to survive the apocalypse.

The final Chevy spot on our list was created via a competition by Mofilm to create a 30-second ad. This submission was by Zack Borst, and is an amusing take on a familiar theme – the spoilt graduate.

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Sticking with cars, here is this year’s Chrysler epic from Wieden + Kennedy. The spot sees Eminem, the Chrysler ad star of 2011, replaced by Clint Eastwood, who delivers a serious, and deeply patriotic, sermon on the capacity for survival to be found in Detroit’s Motor City, and the US in general. Highly sentimental, but guaranteed to be loved by the home crowd.

By contrast, car brand Kia went for out-and-out fantasy in its Super Bowl spot, by David and Goliath.

While the website Cars.com decided to go for the surreal touch. By DDB Chicago.

A number of ads utilised man’s best friend for laughs. This one’s from Doritos, and was one of the crowdsourced Doritos ads chosen by the audience of the Crash the Super Bowl website to play during the game.

More doggy fun came from Volkswagen’s The Dog Strikes Back ad, which has already proved a hit online, having been released on YouTube last week. By Deutsch LA.

And yet more dog joy was provided by Bud Light in this spot that sees Weego the rescue dog trained to bring his owner, and all his friends, bottles of beer. By Anomaly.

For its main Budweiser spot, Anomaly looked to the prohibition for inspiration.

The NFL used history to promote the Super Bowl itself, in this ad that tracks how the game has evolved over the years, since its humble beginnings in 1906. By Grey.

Wieden + Kennedy created three ads for Coke starring football-loving polar bears. The agency also created an ambitious app that showed the bears reacting to live events in the game. More on the app is here.

Samsung’s Super Bowl ad saw the unlikely return of Justin Hawkins from The Darkness, who is shown serenading a bunch of Apple worshippers queuing outside a store with the band’s big hit A Thing Called Love and in turn tempting them over to Samsung’s products. By 72 and Sunny.

Celebrities didn’t fare too well in this year’s Super Bowl ads, with spots starring Jerry Seinfeld, Elton John and Ricky Gervais all proving lacklustre, and even David Beckham‘s abs feeling rather predictable. The most successful star-vehicle this year was surely Honda’s ad that saw Matthew Broderick reprise his Ferris Bueller character – the pull of nostalgia made the spot a must-watch, even if many hardcore Bueller fans were left horrified. By RPA.

CR in Print

If you only read CR online, you’re missing out. From the meaning of beans to the power of love, the February issue of Creative Review features our 20 favourite slogans of all time and the stories behind them.

What makes a great slogan? We investigate the enduring power of these clever little phrases in our special slogans issue, dedicated to our choices for the top 20 slogans.

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