Super Bowl XLIV: The Spots

A Commentary on the Commercials of…
“THE WHO DAT” 2010 SUPER BOWL

The 2010 Super Bowl Commercials seem to have been a carbon copy of the 2009 Game
(see Super Bowl 2009 on my blog spot), so I will keep this short and will try not to repeat anything I said last year. In my opinion these so-called commercials make a statement about the true moral value of the present state of the American TV. You can actually measure, not only the values of the viewers, but also the values of the sponsors. We see so-called ad agencies incapable of creative thinking or imagination. Accept the foreign owned Budwiser. We see clients paying ad agencies on work that should never have gone beyond a sketch and certainly not to a storyboard. We see celebrities acting in tasteless commercials just to make a buck. Creativity has been replaced with violent and destructive live action acts that are supposed to be funny and reflect the masses lack of values, morality and respect. It is no wonder why 9 year wars and the war on Terror are accepted by the masses. We see the end result being broken homes and parentless families.

The main sponsor has to be the worst of the bunch and should be congratulated for helping to contribute to 1 in 3 children being obese. This has been no accident by the media. Again I say “America does not know what good is”. Just because a spot tested well is not good enough for me. Moral and ethic values should be an agency and client responsibility first…if not the station. Unfortunately money comes first.

A new problem has developed for me in this year’s presentations. There were so many commercials lumped together that they seemed to compete with the actual game play.
I counted 25 commercials in the first 15 minutes. CBS accepted more commercials to make-up for lower ad rate revenues. I found this very distracting from the actual game. “The Who” in the halftime show was overrun by the laser light glitz. I was so bored with the TV performance that I kept trying to figure out how the laser light and stage design was fabricated and being produced technically (not to mention how they got it on and off midfield field). One fact is that a lot of money is made selling ad time, beer, chips and junk.

I only wish that the those who watch the largest viewed show in America, voted and followed what their elected representatives did on a daily basis. Maybe that improve the direction we have gone in the last twenty years. The positive side of seeing Manning and the Colts defeated was that New Orleans became a Winner that night… and that is a good thing!

Bob Talarczyk, CEO, Creative Director,
Darkhorse Design, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
www.darkhorsedesign-usa.com