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Greetings friend, entrepreneur and fellow business builder, I'm marketing master Jim
Ackerman and this is a special edition of Good, Bad and Ugly Ads. Special because it's
the Super Bowl edition of this program. And whether you like the game or not, I can say
this about the advertisers... They go all out spending all kinds of money on what happens
before, during and after the Super Bowl. And we're going to critique their efforts, not
from an aesthetic perspective, or an entertaining point of view, although that will play into
it, but also from a marketing effectiveness point of view. With me today, my son Dave
Ackerman, also a YouTuber and kindof a video producer in his own right. And by phone, we
have my other son, Joel Ackerman, also YouTuber extraordinaire. Has generated literally 10s
of millions of views between the 2 of these guys together. We'll have Joel on a little
bit later, but Dave, welcome to the program.
DAVE: Good to be here. It's always fun to not just watch the Super Bowl, but you know,
all the ads that run in between, never fail to go all out, at least, if not entertain.
There's good and bad this year.
JIM:Okay, so we're going to talk first of all, about the 5 ads that happened, really
before the game got underway. There were 5 of them. The first one was the Ford Double
ad, followed by a Bud Light ad, a Maserati ad, a Doritos ad, and a Chevy Truck ad. Of
those 5, thought all... 4 of the 5 were noteworthy, for both being good and not so good. Okay
the first one thought was the Ford Double ad, because it really pounded home the idea
that we get almost double the gas mileage.
DAVE: So this was the Ford Fusion Ad and it starts out with um, a lower budget, lower
production value commercial, talking about how you can get double the gas mileage and
then leads right into the 2nd version, saying almost exactly the same script, word for word,
but where the sets are cooler, the actor is more famous, and the stunts are more fun and
everything's bigger. And yeah, I agree, I think it did a good job of selling that big
benefit of better than average gas mileage.
JIM: And people care about that. Okay, the Maserati spot...
DAVE: The Maserati ad looked like an independent film trailer. And then, suddenly, it's Maserati.
To me, this was a big miss. Maserati does not speak to... I mean, you have independent
film and all the messaging was about go it alone, and you see it was very populous, and
you see that kinda language in, you know, Apple Computers or something like that, but
then it's Maserati and its a car made for millionaires, and I just found it very...
I mean, the first part was I was going, okay what's this about, and when I found out it
was for Maserati... Maseratis are really cool, but it was just like...
JIM: I think Maserati was trying to play on the fact that it was Maserati. And thats what
they were going for and frankly, I agree with you. I thought it was terrible. It goes down
as a big Ugly.
Doritos Time Machine ad...
DAVE: I love the Doritos campaign in general. I love that film makers can submit stuff.
I've had a lot of friends submit commercials for the Doritos campaign. Uh this one was
just okay to me. I just didn't think it was that funny. The cool thing about the Doritos
campaign is it front loads all the interaction so much, that they can't lose. They always
get something that's pretty funny. This one, playing on kids and their interactions and
imagination and stuff...
JIM: The thing I didn't like about this one is that it didn't make you want Doritos all
that much. The guy gives up his Doritos to go in this time machine, but it wasn't all
that compelling. The point we want to make though with Doritos-- and they came back later
with a nice ad in the 4th quarter - that talked about the Lone Ranger thing, and that one
I thought was much better. But the thing about the Doritos series is, that they like Dave
says, they front-end load it. You get a contest up front, there's a lot of Doritos commercials
that are made, people watch these things, they go on line they go on YouTube, they vote,
and the winners get to go on the Super Bowl. They only had 2 of them this year; I think
they had 3 or 4 last year, but the concept of the process I think is a great melding
of social media and the Super Bowl... a better use of your money...
DAVE: Doritos is, I mean there are a few chip brands, cooler than Doritos, and that's what
a lot of these ads are about. A lot of these ads have the goal of creating an interactive
brand experience. Or just brand ambassadors... people who believe in that brand. And when
I think of cool chips, for a long time Doritos has been doing stuff to put them in that category.
Of like, what makes a party? What's a fun... I mean, the fact that they wind up in a taco
shell in Taco Bell, Doritos does a lot right when it comes to being a cool brand. And whether
their commercials are funny or not, they're usually trying to be, but I think Doritos
wins, in my book, for just this whole campaign, to capture attention and be cool.
JIIM: Good. The last one was the Chevy ad with the eligible bachelor, where the bull
is in the back. It said nothing about the truck; didn't make you think that gee wiz,
Chevy's a better way to tow your bull in the back of the truck than any other truck. I
thought it was bad. The Master says, That one's ugly!
And on that sorry note, you enjoy the first half and we'll be back at half time with more
commentary and we'll bring Joel in on that.