I may be in the minority and I do not want to take away from the brilliant performance of the Seattle Seahawks, but I thought last night’s game was one of the least interesting in my lifetime, including one of the worst crops of commercials. The game itself was so dominated by the Seahawks it was only fascinating in the same sense as a really bad car crash at Nascar and even then you almost felt like averting your eyes. I appears that the transit nightmare afterwards was more of a blood sport. Indeed, my family did not think the halftime show was that creative (though I am not a Bruno Mars fan) and thought the commercials were downright boring. That later point has my fascinated. There seemed a real decline in the number of funny commercials this year and many commercials were rehashes or conventional pitches. If there are bad years for wine and Superbowls, 2014 is likely to go down as a particularly bad vintage.
One controversial commercial aired after all. Scarlett Johansson was on with her pitch for SodaStream after the company dropped its last line — “Sorry, Coke and Pepsi.” Of course, that was not the controversy that generated the pre-game buzz. The company’s factory is located in the West Bank and was denounced by human rights activists as a violation of international law. After the international charity Oxfam criticized her involvement (while being one of its ambassadors), Johansson decided to quit the charity and keep the company. I am still interested in the business decision by the company to push for the Superbowl attention, which has made it the primary focus of the boycott movement.
We love watching the commercials each year and the whole family was struck on how boring most of the pieces were this year. Companies went heavy with celebrities over creativity. Some were moderately funny but there was not the usual collection of water cooler favorites.
There was the usual formula pieces with cute kids and puppies that ranked near the top this year with The Budweiser doing a Clydesdale spot of an unrequited love between one of its horses and a yellow Lab puppy while Doritos had a cute little girl riding a Mastiff.
http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5192E9Pnfo
I thought the photography work on the Bob Dylan commercial was impressive as long as you really want Bob Dylan building your car:
Then there was the Scientology commercial, which led me to wonder how many people looked up from their chips and beers and said, “Hey, I would to give Scientology a try.”
Did you have the same reaction as my family that the commercials (like the game) was a bit of a let down this year?
The onlt commercial I really liked… was the horse with the puppy,
nick spinelli
Dredd, His brothers on the team got Sherman’s mind right. And the Dylan commercial was the first time I understood him in 4 decades. It must have taken 300 takes to get intelligible sentences from the man w/ marbles in his mouth.
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Some folks can’t handle the best.
Some can … the most watched ever! super bowl and most watched TV program in history!
Not bad Seahawks!
Dredd, His brothers on the team got Sherman’s mind right. And the Dylan commercial was the first time I understood him in 4 decades. It must have taken 300 takes to get intelligible sentences from the man w/ marbles in his mouth.
That Dylan commercial was boring, jingoistic, poorly dubbed, cliche and derivative of too many HBO show openings.
Yikes Bob! What a clusterfa**k of mediocrity.
That Dylan commercial was boring, jingoistic, poorly dubbed, cliche and derivative of too many HBO show openings.
Yikes Bob! What a clusterfuck of mediocrity.
I am glad that the best corner in the league has toned it down. When asked about the game he humbly said “We kicked they butt.” 🙂
This Super Bowl 2014 was the most watched, and even the most watched television program in history (Super Bowl 2014 Is Most-Watched Program In US History).
We actually enjoyed the game, and not because we are in Seahawks country. I don’t much care for the Manning brothers, generally, but even I thought Peyton was heroic last night. The VW ad and the yoghurt ads cracked me up. The Budweiser ad with the veteran made me want to scream “Panderer!” at Bud — but I don’t drink that crap anyhow. The Coke ad with all “those” people singing made us all smile to think of racist heads exploding. Of course, here in Western Washington? The highways were clear this morning — pretty sure half the exuberantly celebrating citizens called in hung-over!
nick:
“Mespo, That’s interesting. My take on Carroll was “phony.” I will have to rethink that.”
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Mine too, but he went way out of his way to help this kid and he had two 5-Star tailbacks on his roster already.
Sounds like sour grapes to me.
I liked the bear with the yogurt and the kid riding the mastiff. Just the day after, however, I couldn’t tell you the brands for anything. The Bud commercial with the puppy was cute, but last year’s was cuter. At my house, my huge Superbowl party of 4 people kept it on until the end. Why? We couldn’t believe Denver wouldn’t score at all, and the looks on Peyton Manning’s face (sorry Denver fans). From the first play of the game, however, he looked confused and out of sorts. Perhaps, from now on, they’ll (and by this I mean any teams reaching the Superbowl) shorten the pre-game hype; interviews, parades, personal appearances, etc., to less than two weeks and maybe keep it to two days? By the time the game began, I imagine the players were tired. I know I recognized players I would have never known in my life, and never cared about.
Seattle players certainly had their mind in the game —
http://positiveperformancetraining.com/meditation-3-ways-the-seattle-seahawks-are-using-it-to-gain-a-competitive-edge-and-how-you-can-too/
After the completion of the WM Phoenix Open, we began dinner prep. During dinner (pork tenderloin w/ balsamic & rosemary, green beans and arugula salad all accompanied by a 2009 Le Bocce Chianti Classico), we checked the TV for the game score. We tuned in just in time to catch the second half kickoff TD run back. We turned the TV off and finished dinner and the dishes. I then watched a CNN show about the Sugar Ray Leonard-Roberto Duran “no mas” fight followed by a Tom Hanks narrated special about the 1960’s British music “invasion” also on CNN. I found both very interesting and worth the time spent. Not caring a whit about sports (other than golf) sometimes has big advantages.
Mespo, That’s interesting. My take on Carroll was “phony.” I will have to rethink that.
I wish that they would have interviewed the Seahawk mascot. The real bird not the dude with the head dress.
The Broncos looked like they were running in wet concrete compared to the Seahawks
Man, I thought Bruno Mars was a refreshing show of real musical and entertainment talent. Nice to see real musicians and real music instead of the usual cleaned up, mass produced sonic pollution these days. My son even looked up and said, “hey, nice flams!”
I am on the lookout for a dober-hauhau (sorry for the spelling attempt), if someone knows where I can score one.
I forgot to mention that The National Anthem was very well done by the opera singer.
Yep, the commercials were not up to par.
The Seattle defense is a very good one, and the Seattle offense finally showed up too.
Horrible game and only a few good commercials. I must have been eating when the Scientology ad ran. Crazy time to advertise a religion. I always wonder about the need to advertise any religion.
I liked the Dylan ad. It was just hard to hear him over the eating noises!