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Top 10 Best Superbowl Ads (and 3 worst)
What were the best Superbowl commercials that will help you survive the watercooler this week? Check out Charlie and I as we do a video review on YouTube of the best (and worst), (see it on Google video too) and click here to view the entire ads on various online-video sites.
Note that this post and video were done before the game actually finished, so we may see some unexpected surprises and need to revise accordingly. What do you think? Have some favorites I didn’t mention, or some losers of your own?
Here’s a Hulu widget that lets you watch the Superbowl ads in HD…
Now here’s my top-10 list (you can also see Adweek for some coverage).
- Number 10 was Coke”s avatar ad– visually appealing and sentimental.
- Number 9 may be the most quoted ad: “Think With Your Dipstick Jimmy” by Castrol. Annoying at first, but it grows on you like fine wine or oil sludge.
- For spot 8… I don’t often like repeat campaigns but that eTrade baby did it again with talking babies.
- Position 7 belongs to Dreamworks animated film “Monsters Verus Aliens” and the clips rocked even in 2D.
- Number 6 belongs to CareerBuilder for reminding us that these symptoms may indicate it’s time to brush up the resume.
- Number 5 goes to Denny’s who flip off iHop’s foo-foo pancakes. We need more Giggledrops, baby.
- The fourth best ad belongs to Coke with its medley of animated insects. Ladybugs, like cows, sell.
- The hotly debated number 3 ad is Pepsi’s Refresh mosh up of Forever Young featuring Bob Dillon and Will.i.am.
- The second greatest Superbowl ad this year goes to Pedigree Dogfood video, which features no dogs but will be the most talked about. Rhinos in cars? Common, peeps. If you didn’t laugh at that ad, check you funny pulse.Now for number 1: Miller Light’s “Deliver Guy” ad by Saatchi & Saatchi is the indesputable winner of pre and post game buzz. Windell Middlebrooks spent 17 hours taping these 1-second spots, and it worked.
Now the losers?
- Spot 3 is the absurdly forced Gatorade ad featuring a collection of athletes and animated lizards. Puleez- 1996.
- The second loser award goes to GoDaddy.com for still pitching hosting solutions with hot babes. That campaign is beaten to death, and is almost as bad as Peta’s banned veggie campaign. The absolute worst ad belongs to the biggest sellout since me. Ed McMahon’s Cash4Gold.comlong after we care.
- I know many liked this “amateur” Doritos advertisement, but I was almost tempted to put it in the worst category. What? I’m not a sore loser or anything. Right Reubnick? Okay- here’s my losing entry to Doritos “Crash the Superbowl” contest.
Finally, some cool quotes to give you extra credit at the watercooler. Use them as your own if you wish…
- Gawker’s Joshua Stein: “A girl shoving a stalk of broccoli up her cooter doesn’t make me want to stop eating meat even a little.”
- Although the economy meant fewer startup ads, Techcrunch Michael Arrington’s favorite is Technorati, although they cheated by using footage from one of my favorite movies. His readers were polled and agree.
- “It’s sure not 2008 any more,” said Nathan McKelvey, the CEO of Jets.com. Poor executives…
Now what do you think?! And here is YouTube’s “AdBlitz” channel that now features all of the ads…
Really enjoyed the video! Loved the number 1. I have to agree with that. Was laughing at just how he said everything. ha.
Haha Bruno the ostridge
woah! godaddy ones were dumb
6 needs to move up the list, it was awesome!
but my favs were the dorito ones!
Commercials
Weirdest: cash4gold <— just sad – I hope they paid those guys enough to bail them out of hock for the humiliation and embarrassment they suffered doing that commercial.
I Want My 30 Seconds Back: bud horses all – godaddy – sobe – coke zero – bosses – blind date- telefloral
Between Less Than and Okay: car.com – budlight ski – cheatos – doritos office – bridgestone – budlight morale – pepsi generation – sprint – lmao – hrblock – toyota – conan – coke avatar – coke heist.
For The Most Part:
career builder – was too long, but the people were funny.
etrade – didn’t top last years, but was still cute; e-baby needs a shave and a hair cut.
budlight office – was timely and the trip out the window was very monty pythonish.
pepsi max guys- explains why America’s Funniest Home Videos and Jackass worked.
castrol – monkeys!
doritos crunch – was stupid funny.
dennys – silly, but the most honest commercial. Dennys, a dive with mobsters and rude waitresses.
coke bugs – was lame, but pretty.
BEST
miller – perfect set up, short and sweet with loads of personality.
audi – other than a touch more editing here and there, was a good slick his-story commercial.
Can I get an Audi and a beer for saying that?
miss FedEx
Hulu has them all in HD
I didn’t see all the ones you mentioned, but the Hulu ad with Alec Baldwin was one of my favorites, as were the careerbuildeer and the monster.com ads. I liked LMAO too.
Not that you care about my opinion. I’m pouting now.
ya nalts i agree with you you should have won the doritos commercial thing urs rocked!
Presenting the stupidest video hosting site review panel: Metacafe. Got this email from them:
“Thank you for submitting to Metacafe. Your video ‘The Bug Come Hither Song’ has been declined for the following reason:
Your video has been marked as sexually explicit or extremely violent by our review panel.”
on this oversexed video (click)
Stoopid stoopid stoopid
@ seven
while I greatly enjoyed the video, I can see why they declined it, because the words “bug sex” evoke so many erotic images of bugs humping.
At least it does to the freak who rejected it.
OMG! I love how Charlie says, “psh” as he’s being forced out the door!
LOL @ “SCRAM!”
:o)
@9 he’s sitting besides me right now and I wanna scram him.
@7 Metacafe! Hee. At least it works. Looks like Revver is totally down.
@8 Bugs humping.
Jan- good picks. Thanks for the hulu tip.
I may be biased, but I thought the grease monkeys were pretty awesome. If you want to the video again, check it out on YouTube: http://bit.ly/4Jr2
To learn more about Castrol EDGE, here’s the site: http://bit.ly/17AfP
I didn’t catch all of these; going to try to catch up when I get home.
IMVHO, I did not like any of the Coke ads. Except the one that ripped off their 30-year old ad with Mean Joe Greene.
I LOVE the baby ads; loved them last year, loved them again this year. Especially the golfing one.
Loved the Pedigree commerical; especially since my man David Duchovny does the voice-over.
I usually don’t care for the CaeerBuilder.com commercials; those monkey commercials drove me nuts. But I liked this year’s commercial.
I, too, am sick of the mysoginistic GoDaddy.com commercials. Enough already.
That’s my 2¢, FWIW.
Perhaps its simply because I am an athlete myself, but I loved the gatorade commercial. Even if it isn’t some random new-pull-out-all-the-tricks commercial, it was simple and truthful that every athlete could relate to. Plus Jessica Mendoza is amazing.
I may be biased, but I thought the grease monkeys were pretty awesome. If you want to know more, check it out here: http://bit.ly/17AfP
I’m currently watching all of them with my mom. I’ll get back to you when I’m done. I personally so far think that the Lizard one was THE WORST, plus, the truck one sucked also.
Ok. I’ve made my opinions. I can easily say that the one with Conan O’Brien was the best, but the pedigree weird pets one, and the Pepsi “I’m good” ones competed with it. Of course, I love Conan O’Brien, so automatically I’m biased.
Anyway, the worst of the worst is probably that disturbingly creepy Chester the Cheetah cheetos one. Seriously. I hated it. Why did they make Chester all creepy and weird. He acted like he would sell you drugs behind dairy queen. And was he growling sexually at that girl? What a weirdo.
Alec Baldwin was too much like William Shatner, and I don’t even know what GoDaddy is. Is it a porn website?
All of the car ones sucked too. I didn’t even watch them. They all were basically the same.
Those flowers were PRICKS. You know the ones.
Lastly, though, I’d like to give my two cents on the Doritos commercials. Although both were giggle-worthy, they basically defeated the purpose of the contest. The contest (I thought) was supposed to be geared towards finding “amateurish” content that was still funny. Yet, 2,000 dollars were spent on the Crystal Ball one. I don’t even want to know how much the other one cost. They both blended in with the other expensive high quality ads, and I’ll bet very few people would actually know they were user submitted. I think it’s a disappointment.
On a lighter note, my mom really Clydesdale ones. I’m not quite sure if that’s a good thing for whatever beer they were advertising.
Is anybody actually still reading this? I feel like Jischinger writing this huge comment.
oh, and also thanks for the mention. I wouldn’t say were are sore losers. I personally think I’m just a loser.
I never even expected to win this thing anyway. With commercials like the crystal ball one that nobody even knew about on that site until the superbowl actually happened, who COULD expect to win?
what’s it feel like to know no one take you seriously or reads your shit?
awww Hulu wouldnt show them in OZ ;o( bummed !!! are they on elsewhere?
I didn’t see a Gatorade add with lizards…
It was the SoBe ad that had the lizards.
OMG! I’m definitely going to see ‘UP’ the pixar movie and the coke and pepsi commercials were my favorite. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!
How did Pepsuber not make the top worst???? That Pepsi commercial was awful and was it was disappointing to see Richard Dean Anderson in it. Much worst then MC Hammer in Cash for Gold.
The Pedigreed Dog Food has my vote for best stand-alone ad (separating it from any pre-buzz campaign). It’s played beautifully straight, the concept is so true (exotic pets suck), and that spray that flies off the water buffalo’s nose when the Frisbee hits it? Friggin’ genius…
OMG I LOVE SPENCER PLZ Bring him BAck