This was the best commercial of the Super Bowl.
Trust me, I know because I watch the Super Bowl only for the commercials.
That robot dancing part is so funny. Kia has been doing a decent job recently of using advertising and some strategic marketing to strengthen their brand.
On the other hand, for example, Hyundai ran a spot that touted their Sonata's paint job as being better than a Mercedes. The commercial was actually well made and looked decent - but whoever thought that comparing paint jobs with a Benz was going to be an effective strategy to sell bargain priced off brand sedans should be fired.
This whole Taco Bell campaign with Barkley just irritates me. What is the tie-in? He's promoting a $5 "NBA box". What's inside this box besides random taco junk that makes it NBA related? Why is he speaking like Dr. Seuss? Whose idea was this?
At least in the T-Mobile ads, Charles plays himself and the commercials reference his public persona and charming imaginary friendships with Dwyane Wade and Dwight Howard. Here he's just making a fool of himself. I don't fault Barkley - it's Taco Bell's ad agency Draft FCB's fault. This place is actually headquartered in Irvine and they also made that random Dockers' spot where all the guys are roaming around in no pants.
Taco Bell has a giant ad budget - they need to go back to using their old agency TBWA/Chiat Day. I'd take those chihuahua ads over the stuff they're currently running any day. Or, of course,they could hire us - Matt and I can make much better commercials than this and save them about $100 million or so a year.
I know everyone loves these E*TRADE ads. The talking baby gimmick gets a bit repetitive but they're still better than most of what's out there.
This Google commercial was well made. It tells a story but makes the viewer use their imagination to fill in the gaps. Not to mention it seems like it cost about $250 bucks to produce - which is $5 million less than all the other 60-seconds spots.
In other commercial related news, my boy Manny recently starred in the new Mac Snack Wrap commercial for McDonald's. Manny was the lead in a short film my friend Rick made last year that I worked on as Assistant Director. Anyway, I was really surprised to see him on TV so I e-mailed him to congratulate him. He's very talented and he told me that since we worked together last year he's actually been cast on episodes of Raising the Bar, ER, and Cold Case. Anyway, every time I see him on TV standing on the balcony sweet talking that tortilla wrapped hamburger patty, I just feel so proud of him.
And last but not least, the best commercial in recent history: Hanes Sock Paste. (I love this spot - Matt thinks it's sort of mediocre but I think he just doesn't get it. I laugh every time.)
