Well, the Super Bowl was over at halftime (again), but the ads ran throughout, giving us a reason to watch. A total of 60 ran this year, though maybe half of them were new. Here are the top five:
- Paul Wong
- Ali Landry made another crowd-pleasing appearance in a Super Bowl ad, this time involving a ball machine and a blow to the head. Damn, this bitch is horny for Doritos!<br><br>Courtesy of Doritos
1. Cingular Wireless: This is one of the most powerful advertisements I have ever seen. It shows a mentally retarded person, who can barely move or talk, painting these absolutely beautiful self-portraits with a brush strapped to his head. The Cingular tagline, “We believe in the power and beauty of self-expression” is extremely appropriate for this ad. This advertisement proves that humor is not the only way to get your message across.
2. E-Trade: The commercial shows a monkey leading a horse through a desert. All of a sudden, a wrecking ball hits a building, and a sock puppet that looks suspiciously like the spokes-puppet of the now-bankrupt Pets.com falls on the ground next to the monkey. The tagline “Invest Wisely” comes on the screen.
3. Nacho Cheesier Doritos: Ali Landry, after pouring a bag of Doritos into a tennis ball machine, tries to catch the chips in her mouth (as she has done in other Doritos commercials). But she gets hit in the head by one and is knocked out. Fairly funny, but just the fact that it has Ali Landry is enough to get this spot onto the Top 5.
4. EDS: This is another really funny commercial from this company, just like their cat-wrangling spot last year. It is a spoof of the running of the bulls in Pamplona, but substitutes the bulls with squirrels. “It”s not the big, lumbering competitors you need to worry about. We”ll help you compete with the small, nimble ones.” It”s very amusing seeing people running away from squirrels and talking about squirrels like they are dangerous animals, but does anyone know what EDS does?
5. Accenture: A guy is driving a Pagani Zonda (a very rare and expensive Italian super-car) around some Italian city. A headline appears on the screen saying “65% of Online Shoppers Abandon Sale Before Checkout.” The driver disappears, and the salesman in the passenger seat tries to prevent the car from crashing. This is actually a good add, as opposed from their other commercials.
And now, the inescapable worst five:
1. Exit Wounds: It is a Steven Seagal movie. “Nuff said.
2. Pepsi: Bob Dole playing with his dog on a beach, talking about being “revitalized”, and his “little blue friend”. He then sips from a Pepsi can, and does a back flip in front of two attractive young girls running by. This is actually funny, but any reminder of Bob Dole and Viagra makes me vomit.
3. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. This ad is pretty standard action film fare, with lots of quick cuts of fighting scenes. Angelina Jolie looks pretty damn good and has some acrobatic moves, but her horrid English accent places it on this list.
4. Accenture: A bunch of green cell-like things float around, which turn out that to form a computer chip. A newspaper headline appears on the screen saying, “Bacteria tested as microchip.” The tagline, “Now it gets interesting” appears on the screen at the end. What the hell?!?! This ad makes ZERO sense. What do bacteria and microchips have to do with consulting (Accenture is formerly known as Andersen Consulting)? They paid $2.3 million for this shit? Oh yeah, they also had 4 other spots, three of them equally pointless.
5. Anheiser-Busch Alcohol Awareness: While the message is good, the ad features N”Sync. That alone is enough for this spot to make my bad list. However I do have to admit, I did enjoy the half-time show, though I feel dirty about it