jtherkal: Few problems with this one. First, get a professional to make this song sound not like shit! And second, you can’t follow up a song about being a stereotypical man by trying to sell DOVE soap. Anyone who buys into that anthem knows Dove is for girls with soft skin. Maybe if you renamed it HAWK! And do you need to show a hunk lathering up in the shower for us to understand it’s soap? Any stereotypical man (apparently the audience here) knows that you should get homophobic feelings when you watch another man shower. C-.
sjbooher: That song is terrible. Also, at first he has three boys… and then some of his kids are little girls? Unless he’s holding Michael Jackson-style sleepovers? F.
jtherkal: I don’t understand. Were those men not really men, because they weren’t wearing their pants? I like the campaign thought for Dockers, men starting to wear the pants in the family again. But this ad missed the mark. And could it have come in a worse spot? Right after the Careerbuilder underwear spot! Take that, Dockers. D.
sjbooher: Let the manvertising begin. This ad set off a sickening trend in this year’s Super Bowl ads that left me near nausea. Over the past year or so, I have learned and thought a lot about what I will somewhat ignorantly label as “sexism”… probably “gender something or other” is a closer term, but whatever. This was sparked by conversations with my dear friend Colleen and my (at the time) impending fatherhood. Writers such as Ta-Nehisi Coates and Peter Alilunas, who runs manvertised.com have provided written catalysts for this education, especially the latter when it comes to advertising. He can speak on these issues at much higher level than I, so I’ll leave the meaty critique to him. All I know is, I have no problem letting my wife make a decision, I like the color pink, I LOVE the Rachel Zoe Project and I will freely admit Mark Sanchez looked good in that CBS Cares Ad. And I am VERY MUCH still a man. And if I decide not to wear pants? I am still a man. So don’t put me in your crude, neanderthal box, Dockers.
jtherkal: This year was the year of the underpants joke. Of the bunch, this was probably the best. Anyone have an opinion on why you’d pick one of Careerbuilder or Monster over the other? No? Because their ads don’t really tell you either. B-.
sjbooher: Apparently you pick Monster if you are a non-human (AKA a Boogie Man or a beaver). If you are a sophomoric idiot, you pick CareerBuilder. C-.
jtherkal: I didn’t mind the original version, because I’m a sucker for that kind of Wes Anderson junk. I even liked it. This time around, the writing wasn’t as good. There was nothing that really topped the first one of these they made (except maybe that baby tiger). I won’t remember who this was for in five…four…three…two…one…C-.
sjbooher: It’s pretty horrible to have a series of adds appear of multiple Super Bowls, and no one knows where you are advertising. You probably should have branded yourself by now. You haven’t. This ad makes me want to stick needles in my eyes and think about Tim Tebow doing circumcisions. D-.
sjbooher: Jay-Z deaded autotune for those in the know, but it’s still valid for the hopelessly culturally behind. This probably could have been funny… but it wasn’t. Only T-Pain saves this from a D. C-.
jtherkal: I heard that Jay-Z song. It didn’t say anything about the death of jokes about autotune, did it? It should have. Autotune jokes have been done, but I guess we shouldn’t expect Bud Light to do anything not already established as a proven gag. Here’s the best autotune skit I’ve seen:
sjbooher: (Queue Jim Mora’s Playoffs rant)… PAAAINNT? Don’t TALK ABOUT.. PAINT? You kidding me? PAINT? D-
jtherkal: I don’t remember seeing this during the Super Bowl. I barely remember seeing it now. When will companies learn that if you’re going to drop $3 million on a Super Bowl spot, it has to stand out. F. For entirely forgettable.
sjbooher: Ha, they got the original MacGyver. I really only two things about MacGruber — the opening song and the explosion shot at the end. The dialogue portion was not particularly funny and the jerky camera made me dizzy. I am also not sure what this does for Pepsi, or what it is suppose to emote. For this one to really work, I think it had to be one of those where the next day people were like, “Ha, and did you see that Pepsuber one?” Not sure if this pulled that off. A few other things I don’t know: a) How many people watch SNL and were already familiar with MacGruber? b) How many people that do not watch SNL, remember, or ever knew about, MacGyver? Finally, Kristen Wiig for mayor. C-.
jtherkal: I wasn’t familiar with MacGruber. I know about MacGyver. But if their target audience was 13-21 year old kids, I bet the answer is “some” to a, and “not many” to b. Now that I’ve answered your questions, I will say that people at my party definitely stopped to pay attention to this one. That being said, I sort of hate it. I guess maybe Pepsi thought they were refreshing MacGuyver? Or refreshing transparency in advertising? Who knows. Since I think the overall buzz was good, I’m going to set my dislike aside and give this one a B+.
They have some other cuts which didn’t air during the Super Bowl, so they don’t count. I like this one the best, but only the intro. The rest is lame:
sjbooher: Is that some sort of Michael Phelps? Some sort of fake-ass Michael Phelps? Some sort of over-dubbed Michael Phelps that was less prominently featured than originally planned after the bong story broke? Or did they purposely go with a bootleg swimmer to ride on the, um, swimming wave? Either way, same old crappy car ad. F.
jtherkal: I don’t hate this. I just would never notice it or remember. Maybe somewhere, deep inside me, these boring Infinity ads are building some sort of passion for the cars that I don’t know about. C-.
sjbooher: These are completely worthless. I love the historical, honorable Clydesdale image Budweiser used to use. In recent years, though, they have gone over to the dark side, failing time after time as their Clydesdale humor becomes more and more sophomoric. I do have to give some credit, though, for the sheer impact of Clydesdale overload. It’s probably the only beer millions of Americans were thinking about as a result of Super Bowl Ads. So that’s something. And, I did have two Budweisers, accidentally, at the casino, the night before the Super Bowl, though, if that counts. C-.
jtherkal: Even though it tastes like beer syrup when it’s warm, I like Budweiser, but I’m almost ready to turn against them. There used to be something nice about the Clydesdales, now, the full me with a great fury. This weekend, I’m taking the train to upstate New York and buying a Clydesdale so I can put it down. F.
sjbooher: I guess this is sort of memorable. I guess that guy probably does want a new job. I new the attempt at humor here fails with me and makes me angry. C-.
jtherkal: “I new the attempt at humor here…” What? Maybe you need a new job. This is a simple, memorable, instant classic joke. I didn’t see it coming, and I feel like that’s sometimes hard to do nowadays. And more than being a nice joke, it delivers the message. You get the ass end of the deal. Get a new job. The only problem is, I can never separate the Monster and CareerBuilder ads in my head. I think both sites suck. A-.