Sunday, February 7, 2010

YES. THE YO GABBA GABBA CHARACTER WHO LOOKS LIKE A MARITAL AID IS NOW SHILLING FOR KIA MOTORS: Open post-Season Ending Big Game discussion thread. Can anyone locate the Carrie Underwood anthem length or Townsend windmill data? (The latter number was high, but what a lousy, joy-thwarting performance.)

As for the football, be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid. Goethe sid that.

added: Bill Carter (who else?) on how the Letterman/Leno/Winfrey ad was done; Stuart Elliott reviews the ads, as do James Poniewozik and AdAge's Bob Garfield, who gives top marks to Audi's anti-green green car ad, the Dodge Charger daily affirmation and the FloTV Nantz/lingerie ad.

added further: Betty White and Abe Vigoda FTW in the 22nd Annual USA Today Ad Meter, marking the second straight year without Anheuser-Busch winning. Alice in Wonderland topped the movies on a disappointing night for film ads (where was my Toy Story 3 or Iron Man 2?), which means that I believe Scott is a repeat winner for our Super Bowl pool, having predicted a Saints win with Brees MVP, a relative high number of Townsend windmills and Carrie Underwood clearly going over 1:42 with the Anthem.

breaking!, and eventually we'll have a new post up on something today: Megan Fox used a thumb double. And Bill Simmons has a second half diary: "Let's be honest: The Denny's free Grand Slam sounds fantastic until you're actually eating it. It's like getting a free Thai massage or a free DVD of 'John From Cincinnati.'"

50 comments:

  1. Andy Hutchins11:41 PM

    Carrie came in at 1:43:28. I timed it from first syllable to mouth closed.

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  2. I was half watching at a party, but the Google ad was the only ad that struck well.  (Though my comment that Megan Fox's attractiveness is dimmed by her stupidity scored me points with the females in attendance.)

    And even though it was a mediocre Who performance, it'll be a lot of fun to play on Rock Band.  Daltrey/Townsend clearly saw this for what it is--a chance to expose their music to a larger/younger audience.

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  3. Oh, that Who set was awful. Was there lip-syncing? A couple of folks at my party thought there was.

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  4. <span>I hope there wasn't lip-synching.  I would hate to think that Daltrey had multiple chances to come up with a decent vocal track and *that* was the best he could do.</span>

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  5. sorry, but the clip on youtube seems to put carrie underwood closer to 1:47 from "Oh Say" to "brrrrRRRRAAAAAAYYYYYYUUUUUHHVVVVVUUHhhhhh." (1:47)

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  6. I said the same thing---there couldn't possibly have been lip-syncing for the Who performance, because those vocals were that off.

    Oh, and my boyfriend seconds the "joy-thwarting" description.  Ugh.

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  7. I had Carrie Underwood's National Anthem (live, not lip-sync, unlike some others in recent years) at 1:48.

    The best ad was not even covered by that AdAge article:  the Google ad.  Simple, effective, stood out, had some real emotion behind it.

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  8. I don't know, I always get a huge kick out of reading interviews with Megan Fox. She's pretty funny and self-aware. I have no reason to believe that she's stupid.

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  9. Adlai1:00 AM

    http://twitpic.com/11ztlv

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  10. Maret1:22 AM

    I also loved the Snickers ad with Betty White and Abe Vigoda.

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  11. Nancy7:12 AM

    Loved that Google ad too... I think I was the only one here who even paid attention to it. LOVED Betty White- the ads were downhill from there., IMO. And that was like the 2nd one.

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  12. Linda8:12 AM

    David Letterman.  Betty White.  Google.

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  13. The Pathetic Earthling8:24 AM

    We had about 25 people over here for Super Bowl and every stopped talking during the Google advert.  Very sweet.

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  14. The Pathetic Earthling8:29 AM

    There's actually a whole series of these "Google Stories" you tubes.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g65Jz43gA3A&feature=channel

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  15. Yeah, the Google ad is technically three months old.

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  16. <<span>a href="http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/clips/family-dinner/2908/">Will Ferrell: "I drive a Dodge Stratus!</span>

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  17. Of course, after the game, I went home and promptly watched the Modern Family marathon that ABC counterprogrammed on my DVR.  Man, "Fizbo" is a work of genius,

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  18. Oh, and winner for most insane waste of money has to go either to "The Back-Up Plan" or The United States Census, right?  (Though at least the latter ad was funny.)

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  19. The Letterman/Leno/Oprah promo was unranked by the Ad Meter.  Was pleased to see The Race touted so much.

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  20. The Pathetic Earthling9:16 AM

    Because I'm an airline dork, I noticed that the November google stories ad had pull up an American Airlines flight, but the one that ran on Super Bowl pulled up a Delta Airlines flight.  What an odd little change.

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  21. Roger9:57 AM

    Heather's much-closer final score prediction doesn't give her the win over Scott?

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  22. Heather K9:59 AM

    Is it possible that your assessment of her 'intelligence' is being brightened by her attractiveness?

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  23. In my judgment, 31-24 vs 31-28 isn't as big of a difference as 4 windmills versus 6.  But I'm willing to entertain argument.

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  24. Marsha10:14 AM

    Loved the Google ad, none of the others (including Dave/Jay/Oprah and Betty White) really did anything for me.

    At least the game was pretty good this year.

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  25. Joseph J. Finn10:16 AM

    Betty White killed at the bar I was watching the game at (and I failed bad at Ad Bingo, what with no girls in bikinis until relatively late in the game, no Iron Man, no Toy Story and a complete waste of an Amstel Light square).  Also, the Brett Favre in 2020 ad I thought was fairly funny.

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  26. Heather K10:18 AM

    I just can't believe I got the score that close!!  I don't even watch football, and I had to look up the name of a player on the Saints team to enter the pool! 

    This is probably not an argument that would help me win.

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  27. Alex Gordon10:39 AM

    The top three ads in the USA Today Ad Meter all ran during the first break, which means either the best ads run first or people get sick of the ads as the game goes on (especially when it is a close game?). Thought Dave-Oprah-Leno was genius, just because how often are we actually surprised by anything. Also thought it might have been a subtle dig at Leno to have him munching chips (doesn't dave still rip on him for schilling Doritos...and, a little off the beaten path, but my wife refered to someone as looking like the Doritos guy the other day, and by that she meant Avery Schrieber, which means we are officially ancient). Like the Census ad, but I think it might play better during something like the Daily Show that the Super Bowl, though Saints fans do love a Bob Balban.

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  28. girard3110:51 AM

    There should have been a poll on which quarter Peyton Manning would show signs he was human. I never would have guessed the fourth.

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  29. Neato Torpedo10:54 AM

    Google. Betty White. Dave.

    I have to think that something's wrong with the demographics on the Ad Meter.  I was at a party where conversation STOPPED for the Google spot.  Admittedly, they're all < 35 years old with a college degree (which may skew the attention given to the product somewhat), but for that spot to be ranked in the FORTIES?  USA Today needs to revisit their methodology.

    The Green Police spot was decent, although you know you're old when you have to explain to people that it's "Dream Police" and you have to follow up the blank stare with, "Apu sang it once while washing his car?" before the realize how they know it.

    The movie spots were... awful.  I have to agree the "Back Up Plan" spot probably just killed the movie - that strikes as one of those things thatin context tests great but at 30 seconds it just implodes.  Alice in Wonderland was the tallest midget.

    I think the Census spots work better if you know they're telling a story.  They may not have enough points behind them for everyone to be able to follow it. 

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  30. Dave, Betty and Abe, Audi, Google- my faves.  I also found the VW ad to be cute...at the end.  Are they trying to bring back punch-buggy?

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  31. piledhighanddeep11:07 AM

    I clocked the anthem at 1:47 watching it live.  I think the windmill count exceeded 12.

    I was sad that the Toy Story spot didn't run.  Anyone know why? 

    I loved the Betty White/Abe Vigoda spot.

    I was disappointed at all the woman-hating ads, considering tons of women are watching the game.   And I'm a little surprised that Jim Nance would allow himself to be drawn into the misogyny with the flotv ad.

    Back-Up Plan:  what a terrible, terrible, terrible try at marketing a movie.  Yikes.

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  32. Woo-hoo!  I'm going to take over this blog!  It will be just like April Fool's Day 2005!

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  33. Joseph J. Finn11:32 AM

    Yeah, not to pile on it...but that Back-Up Plan ad was just incredibly awful, even worse than whatever that Gerard Butler thing is that is dragging Jennifer Aniston down with it.  The less said about FloTv, the better.  And it took having it in Ad Bingo last night, btw, to find out that Court TV had apparently been rebranded as TruTV.

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  34. Is the timing bias consistent over the past few year?  (And is it that companies with great ads make sure they're aired early, or that being aired late during a game one wants to get back to makes the ads seem worse?)

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  35. Genevieve12:01 PM

    Oh, punch-buggy is back.  At least among the NoVa 4th-grade-boy demographic.  They've been doing it since last summer.

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  36. Adam C.12:25 PM

    No love for the victor of the ALOTT5MA ESPN Gridiron Playoff Challenge?  Polamalu's Locks held true to their punny name and staved off Beef Wendellington by three points.  No one was happier than me when the last two Saints TDs were scored by people not named Pierre Thomas, and when NO kept getting the ball to Reggie Bush after every couple of Thomas touches.

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  37. piledhighanddeep1:33 PM

    I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I think Daltrey's vocals were prerecorded.  I'm basing that claim on the uniformity of sound on his tracks--they all sounded identically recorded, not with the quieter/louder/winded/not-winded/gravelly/smooth variations you would normally hear in a live performance.  I may be wrong, but his vocals sounded like they came straight out of a recording studio.

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  38. Adlai1:34 PM

    Nope. I don't really care what she looks like.

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  39. Fred App3:07 PM

    I'm in Vancouver this week, so I didn't see any of the American commercials. I can say confidently that the Canadian ads are pretty lame. And since the Super Bowl is not the big deal here that it is in the U.S., there was no hype. They were the run-of-the-mill ads you'd have seen during any TV show.

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  40. Adam C.3:38 PM

    By the way, that song from the Kia commercial ("How You Like Me Now," by The Heavy, which they recently performed on Letterman) has been in my head all day.  Great ad, great earworm of a song.

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  41. Adam C.4:01 PM

    There were at least a couple of moments when it looked like Daltrey's mouth was not in synch with the audio.  Just as I was mentally chalking up the first moment to TiVo delay, the second one came along.  So I think there was at least SOME lip-synch from Daltrey, although Pete was so terrible that his vocals had to have been live.

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  42. Carrie5:32 PM

    The Google ad made me cry. But if you aren' ta regular Goog user, do you get it?

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  43. Squid5:44 PM

    The Google ad cracked me up when "Who Is The Stig?" showed briefly on the suggestion list.

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  44. patricia6:01 PM

    I HATED the Denny's screaming chickens.  No one at the party I was at seemed fazed by them, but I found them simultaneously creepy and annoying.  Loved Google. 

    I thought of the ALOTT5MA community as I watched the windmills.  I wondered whether the windmills in the lights around the stage did or should count in the total for pool purposes.

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  45. Nancy6:55 PM

    It seemed that toward the end of the Who's set, Pete did a big windmill run that was like 8 or 9 complete revolutions... did those count?

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  46. Roger8:06 PM

    Predicting a 7-point win is a lot closer to the 14-point win than predicting a 3-point win; both windmill counts were way low.

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  47. girard3110:04 PM

    Scary -- "The Who's Greatest Hits" shoots to number 7 on iTunes. The power of having 213 million eyes on you.

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  48. Jenn.7:24 AM

    Amen.  The Denny's chicken ads were highly disturbing.

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  49. missy2:01 AM

    As far as i know there is only one legitimate place to watch it, just go here http://movieidiot.com/

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