King Kaufman's Sports Daily
Why is Naomi Campbell dancing with a lizard? The sad state of Super Bowl commercials.
Read more: Sports, Advertising, TV, Super Bowl, King Kaufman, Sports Daily
Feb. 5, 2008 | I dutifully watched the Super Bowl commercials, holding my water and forgoing several potential sandwiches because Super Bowl commercials are important and significant and also meaningful and because I can usually get a Tuesday column out of them.
And I once again came to this conclusion: Super Bowl commercials are over. They're myspaced, which is my way of saying they've jumped the shark, a phrase that long ago myspaced. You can watch all the Super Bowl commercials on the official Super Bowl site, which is on MySpace.
Or, if you prefer a video player that actually works, try YouTube.
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But why would you? They have lost the ability to shock and amaze us. They've devolved to a formula: Lots of computer-generated imagery, with a humorous twist at the end. The humorous twist has become the stand-in for things like imagination and originality.
We are solidly in the postmodern era of Super Bowl commercialdom, which was kicked off a few years ago by FedEx/Kinko's with its 10 elements of a successful Super Bowl commercial ads. Hyundai ran two spots that referred to the very phenomenon of the Super Bowl commercial formula.
In the first, the announcer notes that the new luxury car was "making its debut during the big game," then says, "Yeah, right about now you're probably expecting some crazy big twist or something." The twist is that the car is a piece of junk.
No, wait, the twist is it's a Hyundai. The second spot's voice-over begins, "We're not sure what the USA Today ad meter will think of this commercial tomorrow, but we're pretty sure Mercedes, BMW and Lexus aren't going to like it very much." See what he did there?
GoDaddy.com's spot had a guy sniffing about the Super Bowl, "I used to watch -- for the commercials." But now our early-adopter friend is sitting at the computer, where the action is. He points out that this year, GoDaddy's ad, which in the past has been controversially racy, would be online and featuring pulchritudinous race-car driver Danica Patrick! It's called "Exposure" and it's "too hot for TV!"
This column watched it so you don't have to. It involves a pun on the word "beaver." It's mildly amusing. There's, like, a humorous twist at the end. Patrick doesn't "expose" anything, though I don't think you needed me to tell you that.