My favourite Superbowl ad this year has got to be from Radioshack. It neatly addresses all their brand perception problems, while also managing to position their ‘refreshed’ stores as a less scary, more human version, all-manufacturers-welcome version of the Apple Store. There’s loads of 80s references that today’s tech-hungry 30-somethings will love and to top it all it’s funny too.
And in a very close second there’s Bud Light, which impressively covers off music, celebrity, irony, sport, the ‘hidden camera’ trend AND humour, with an impressive amount of product placement to boot.
I have to give an honorable mention to Bud Light parent brand Budweiser for getting both horses AND puppies into their ad – do these two ads taken together mean that Budweiser is now aimed at women and Bud Light at men?
But it’s so important that an ad fit its broadcast environment and therefore audience expectations (in this case high energy, entertaining) and a few of the Superbowl ad crop this year seem to have got the tone wrong, however good or worthy the actual ad may be, an example being Chevy.
As Charlie Brooker put it: