We spent Friday afternoon at dd|a taking a look back at the Super Bowl commercials with five days of fresh perspective (and renewed appetites for junk food and beer). Long story short: we weren’t overwhelmingly impressed with 2012’s commercials.

But do I ever keep a long story short? Nah, not really.

After cycling through most of the ads that were featured Sunday night, here are our takeaways:

• There was mucho NBC self-promotion. In addition, we felt that there were far more TV show promos and movie trailers than usual. What’s up with that?
• It seems that retro-appeal is trending. Either that or there just aren’t enough catchy, memorable bits in the works to appeal to the Super Bowl-watching demographic. (Don’t get me wrong – we like singing along to “Thing Called Love” as much as the next guy – but it sounds like opportunity is knocking, my friends.)
• We were surprised not to feel more yanks at our heartstrings, particularly considering the state of the economy recently. That said, Toyota (the Camry “Connections” spot; not the “Reinvented” one) and a couple of others did pull through.
• Generally, we were left with a sense that many of the commercials were gratuitous – purely for the sake of entertainment, rather than memorability of the brand. We appreciate that to a degree, but when we couldn’t even remember what several of the spots we liked were promoting, it was a bad sign.
• Budweiser (and Bud Light) know their audience and how to speak to it. They hit it year after year and this was no exception. “Over the Decades” and “Here Weego,” complete with a shout out to rescue dogs, take the cake. Hands down.
• I take that back. Most of us would leave one hand up for H&M’s David Beckham Bodywear.

Written by Ally G
David Day | Associates
About the Author: I trust that red wine, a long run and/or a comic book can cure just about anything; and that really wonderful song lyrics can make or break it just as quickly. In moments of true desperation, I believe in the church of baking.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 11th, 2012 at 8:07 am and is filed under Advertising, Branding, Fun, Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.