My Favorite Super Bowl Ad

As many of you know and Rick points out in the comments, this was ad was created as part of a "user generated ad" campaign and the winner were some college kids who Rick says made the ad for $12. That's awesome. More on the campaign and how well it worked here.

And for those who don't have flash and can't watch this commercial (like Jackson), the ad I am referring to is the Doritos ad called Live The Flavor.

Comments

[Rick]

A group of college kids made that on their own for $12. And then one some sort of contest.

Pretty brilliant.

[galeal]

That one and the Careerbuilder spots were highlights in an otherwise dreadful commercial night. Part of the issue is trying to appeal to Joe Average. I don't think we are too far from customized commercials - as a first step, we request ads from certain buckets and the advertisers can then create better ads (more tailored). The networks gets more inventory to sell, price per spot comes down (which actually encourages more innovation), advertisers get better ROI, we get better ads. Got to clear some technical hurdles and privacy concerns, but it is only a matter of time.

[jackson]

I wish you'd have at least hinted as to which ad it is you are refering to, as I have no desire to download flash 8 just to watch a commercial I had to put up with once already when I was watching the game last night....oh well, left out in the cold by the techno elite again.... f'in snobs.....

[John Dodds]

All this assumes that interruptive advertising still works!

[John Dodds]

As I blogged last week - when news of the competition reached the UK media - it was interesting to note how un-radical the 5 finalists were. They all looked like commercials that would have come from Madison Avenue but without the production values and costs.

[carl rahn griffith]

brands and advertising in the context of apple's somewhat cliche'd pc vs. mac "personalities" is rather wonderfully explored in this article in the uk press ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2006031,00.html

charlie brooker is a fine journalist and a very funny man.

[Brian]

I liked this commercial too. It's great that they were able to feature it on such a grand platform as the superbowl. I've seen a huge trend in this ever since the youtubes started going crazy. American Express did a whole My Life My Card "home-movie" campaign. Similarly, Omarion has a "dance-video" competition in view of his record release. It's engaging, and showcases great work by regular folks. And some of the work that came out of those initiatives were incredible and on low-budgets. Literally, home movie quality!

I also like the start-up "superbowl" commercials. Meebo's homage to VW and microsoft was pretty neat.

[AlFromChicago]

Fred -

You can track all the conversation and best articles about the ads here: http://www.buzztracker.com/category/super_bowl_commercials

I gotta say also -- as the father of two kids under 7 -- I thought the random stupid violence was almost as bad as the ED ads a few years ago.

Don't people know families watch this game?

[Victor Agreda Jr]

This had elements of everything-- if only my film student companions had such skills back in the day... Although I thought it was pretty fun when, on the evening news (ABC I think) the reporter used the little finger quotes when she said the hottest three words in marketing this year: "user generated content"

Is this really new? No, but the method of interaction is now faster. Companies are more responsive as a result. I think this is a very good thing.

A close second for my fave spot was the Letterman/Oprah blipvert. Hi-lar-ious.

[sandy sabean]

$12 huh? Hmm,I thought I saw two actors in that spot that ran nationally on broadcast TV (attention SAG),a car, a location that needed to be secured for the better part of a day, a camera that recorded all that action, music (any usage fees? guess not!) edit time and supers etc. But it was the 4 bags of chips that made the budget skyrocket to 12 bucks! Got it!

[George Nimeh]

"Cheezy/Live the Flavor" is ok, but "Mousetrap" - a finalist that was not aired - is a far better ad. And it is a country mile better than the other UGC ad Doritos chose to air called "Check out girl."

Videos and more commentary here:
http://www.i-boy.com/weblog/2007/02/super-bowl-2007-ads.html

Oh, and "jackson" ... I think the "techno elite f'in snobs" that you seem so enamored with are using Flash 9, not Flash 8. ;)

[ramasan]

@victor

ya i sort of thought the same stuff. however, as a fellow cary nc resident, i know the location where they filmed it. the place is pretty much a ghost town. waverly center. (incidently its getting steam-rollered and a major facelift - new whole foods store) and i dont think you can count everything - i mean, you dont add in "clothes and shoes for the actors", etc.

in any case, as someone who sells cary real estate - http://www.trihomewiz.com/blog - i was STOKED to see our little podunk get the national press :)