February 2, 2002

11:18 AM

For those who watch the Super Bowl for the commercials, IFILM will be archiving them for post-game viewing, including a Coen brothers-directed H&R Block spot. (via jz)
posted by jkottke (11 comments total)

Good to see someone is filling the space left by adcritic's departure.
posted by mathowie at 11:23 AM on February 2, 2002

Excellent news for Canadians. Usually in Canada they take out all the good commercials and replace them with year-old Tim Horton's and Canadian Tire spots.
posted by bobo123 at 11:24 AM on February 2, 2002

the best part of the super bowl: the commericals.
posted by Kafei at 11:28 AM on February 2, 2002

For analysis of the commercials, tune into PBS after the game for Super Commercials: A Mental Engineering Special.

Also, E! Online has an article about this year's commercials and Ad Age has a whole big round-up (as one would expect) while ESPN takes a look back at the best Super Bowl commercials of all time (the readers' choices).
posted by jkottke at 11:39 AM on February 2, 2002

what is interesting to me are the reports that companies are staying away from superbowl commercials in light of last year's round-up, which included many tech companies that went bust. are people wary of the exposure of superbowl, or are they simply spooked by the albatross circling overhead?
posted by moz at 11:52 AM on February 2, 2002

I'd be a lot more excited about ifilm's act if they didn't have a big spashy link on the page that will go directly to the Britney Spears ad. Seems dirty in some way.
posted by delfuego at 12:03 PM on February 2, 2002

Moz: Someone (I forgot who) did an analysis of the Top of Mind Awareness that viewers retained 2 months after the superbowl ads were actually broadcast the year before. Turned out that only e-trade and a pet food company actually managed to be among the top 10 that the viewers mentioned. If I remember correctly, last year, few of the tech companies advertised on superbowl. Thing is: superbowl is terrific exposure, but viewers would of course need to be bombarded elsewhere and with other means for the TOMA achieved here to be meaningful. It would be unreasonable to blame superbowl for suboptimal PR strategy/business models of some of the tech companies. I guess older, traditional companies have been more successful with adv. simply because 1. they have existent brand equity that they could leverage here 2. they have a more holistic media strategy of which superbowl ads is only one component.
posted by justlooking at 12:18 PM on February 2, 2002

People would be less interested in the ads if the games didn't practically always suck.

But, I think this trend deserves as much of the blame -- all the sports leagues have redesigned their playoffs, more or less, to maximize ad revenue for the benefit of the broadcasters. Why can't they decide wild-card teams with just 3 -- or even one -- game? Why spread the whole process over 4 to 6 weeks? Get it over with already! Then, of course, there's the proliferation of sports and sports events ... and the usual problem with the declining TV audience trend based on competition with cable and all other parts of life.
posted by dhartung at 6:57 PM on February 2, 2002

The Super Bowl has been a commercial connoction since Super Bowl I. --Might as well enjoy the spectacle of greed and hegemony!

Besides, some of those ads are pretty cinematic and creative (as advertising goes). My opinion: Hey, why not? It's an excuse to have fun-- go with it.
posted by Down10 at 12:34 AM on February 3, 2002

Well, the game is not yet over but I cast my Clio vote for the Budweiser "Clydesdale" advertisement paying respects to the victims of S-11. Almost brought a tear to my eye.
posted by treywhit at 6:50 PM on February 3, 2002

I liked Visa - Kevin Bacon ad.
posted by riffola at 9:42 PM on February 3, 2002