SuperAds Recap

The Best:
Pepsi Max - the diet cola for men. Perhaps not super creative in terms of being something we’ve never seen before, but it was impossible not to laugh at all the guys getting creamed, popping up and saying "I'm good.".
runners up:
Pepsi Forever Young - featuring various comparisons between the sixties and now, this spot had good music and just left a pleasant feeling behind
Bud Light - the first spot for Bud Light set in a budget meeting was vaguely amusing, until the guy suggested not buying beer for every meeting and was promptly flung out the window. Unexpected and funny.
Worst:
Pepsi MacGruber: Absolutely the worst ad the whole night. I get that this is an established character from SNL (which by the way, is not even close to funny anymore) so maybe I missed the tongue in cheek attitude or something, but this was so completely awful I can’t even bear to think about it anymore. What I normally would consider its only redeeming point - that they managed to get Richard Dean Anderson (the real MacGuyver) - instead just made me sad that he doesn’t have anything better to do.
runner up:
Sobe: transcended the absurdity of last year’s spot with football players dancing ballet, and the lizards joining in (with a character from the new movie Monsters vs. Aliens for some unknown reason). Really took surrealism to whole new, atrocious levels.
Mixed Feelings:
Audi: the commercial was a send up of the Transporter movies with Jason Statham, and showed him being chased in various cars through the decades. Managed to get the point across that there were different top vehicles in different decades and today it is Audi (at least I think that was the point), but other than that the time travel aspect was just confusing.
Doritos: Both spots were pretty funny, but one had an ending that was too predictable and one had a surprise ending that was inexplicable. The first “crystal ball” spot was funny when the guy suddenly turned and threw the snow globe through the vending machine in order to get chips, but the end when he threw it into his boss was obvious. The second spot where the guy got fantasies to come true when he took a bite was dumb, until he got hit by the bus. Then it was just weird.
ETrade: Not as good as their older spots, I did enjoy the new baby’s line about flexing the golden pipes.
Castrol Edge: Yes this ad was bizarre in concept. Yes it was for motor oil which is hardly a glamour product. But when the guy (sitting in his garage with an air filter on his head) said the chimps just showed up and made him their king, I laughed.
The Old Standard:
Budweiser really dropped the ball this year. Their long standing series featuring the Dalmatian dog and Clydesdale horses was extremely sub par. I usually look forward to these ads since they can be either sentimental or hysterical, but this year they were just lame.
Leno vs. Conan:
Both late night hosts had spots advertising their shows which were practically total opposites, but good in their own ways. Jay’s featured him driving a sweet car with only the most basic info (10, 9 central, fall) about his show painted on it. It was simple, subtle, and effective. Conan’s ad had different celebrities (Martha Stewart, Tina Fey, Adam Sandler and Megan Mullaly) singing his praises. I particularly like Sandler’s assertion that “Conan removes the smell.” Funny and absurd. Winner: tie (depends on your personal taste)
Get A Job!!
Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com both had commercials, one which was not quite as well executed as the other. Monster.com had a very short spot which used funny imagery (sitting under the rear end of a stuffed - we hope- moose) to illustrate the unpleasantness of needing a new job. CareerBuilder.com used different little scenes as examples of what might make it the right time to find a new job - when you hate your job, get no respect, dream of being somewhere else, etc. In general these were amusing, but they dragged on way too long, and threw in an inexplicable koala bear with glasses and coffee which took the spot from clever to boring and strange. Winner: monster.com
Thank You:
For the ad for the new movie Fast and Furious (not so much for the movie itself). I recently read a blurb about Vin Diesel that said he was working on this film, and because the name is practically the same as the original film (which came out in 2001) I was totally confused. I thought perhaps the writer was either on crack and unaware of the current year, or maybe even making a snide comment about Vin not working so much, but either way I was puzzled. So thanks for clearing that up for me. As for actually making another movie, well, I’ll just look past that decision.