
The fun of the Super Bowl may be behind us (go Steelers!), but the ads will remain, at least for a little while. Not all of last night's ads had me laughing out loud, but there were a few I particularly liked — and I'm curious to know which ones caught your eye (besides the movie trailers — we're talking about those over here).
My top tier includes Hulu's "evil plot to destroy the world" ad with Alec Baldwin, Teleflora's offensive talking flowers (seriously, folks? Don't send me flowers in a box from now on!), Pedigree's giant pets, and cars.com's David Abernathy, boy genius ad (which reminded me a little of a Wes Anderson movie, though I was also oddly put off when I found out it was for cars.com). Others that made me laugh — maybe more than they should have — were SoBe's 3-D lizards, the Doritos crystal ball (which topped USA Today's ad meter), and the Denny's thugs. The dating Budweiser clydesdales made me "squee" a little, and of course I got a laugh out of Conan's Swedish ad. And even though it's basically a repeat from last year, I'm so glad the E-Trade baby has a friend.
What about you? Which ads had you chuckling or "awww"-ing long after they left the screen?

















Together
Barbara Bui
Michael Stars
My favorite ad was most definitely the Doritos Crystal Ball ad. We were all literally loling in the living room.
1I loved the dating clydsesdales and the Doritos Crystal Ball ads as well at the Troy Polamalu take on the Mean Joe Green ad.
2I hated the Teleflora one. I wrote them a letter complaining this morning.
3Coca-Cola had a great year of spots thanks to Wieden & Kennedy, particularly "Heist" and "Avatar" which were my two favourite ads featured this year (they also did the "Troy Polamalu" ad, which was hilarious!). Wieden & Kennedy's "Warrior" ad for Heineken, featuring the always enjoyable John Turturro, was particularly enjoyable in its sly suggestion for its consumers to drink responsibly, "with honor."
Another favorite was the "Flowers in a Box" ad for Teleflora, which had me laughing harder than any other ad featured. I never realized how mean flowers could be.
BBDO's GE spots are usually more impressive to me; like "Clouds" (featuring Juju Stulbach singing her cover of CCR's "Have You Ever Seen the Rain"), and "Love Story" (featuring Cao Fang's "In Summer") This year's "Scarecrow" spot was nice, but didn't feel as imaginative as spots past.
Saatchi & Saatchi's "One-Second Ads" campaign for Miller High Life was funny and almost makes me hope other agencies will follow suit and embrace such great use of minimalism. The agency's "Faces" ad for the Toyota Venza was very nice as well, in a host of ads generally lacking an outstanding car commercial.
The new Gatorade "Talking Heads" ad for the G campaign was a huge improvement over the original spot which featured a nerdy sounding Lil Wayne (I had no idea it was him when I first saw it) and looked more like a parody of a Nike commercial.
I tend to despise any fast food commercial as people should be consuming and cooking local produce instead of mass produced fruits and veggies and unhealthy proportions of meat from super-farms and super-slaughterhouses; but I digress. I did, however, enjoy the Taco Bell "Speed Date" commercial, particularly because it made me think of a person and her recent profession of her love for enchiladas. It was as special as it was frustratingly platonic. Good commercial; evil, unhealthy food.
I'm always disgusted each year by the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent per second by agencies that seek to launch an ad campaign with ads that look like they were brainstormed by an agency's accounting department (not to say that folks who work in accounting aren't creative, but there's a reason they crunch financial numbers instead of writing copy). Sadly, since tens of millions of people are watching these commercials, it doesn't matter much whether you've created something as inspired as "Heist" or as inept as the Cash4Gold and GoDaddy ads. I can kvetch all I want, but companies will spend their fortunes getting the spot and leaving nothing in the budget for creativity. Bah.
4The 2 Conan commercials were the best!
5I loved the Doritos one. It was priceless. Also loved the fact that I got to see an Angels and Demons TV spot!
6Hmm, that Teleflora one wasn't funny. I thought from your description it was going to be a play-on "wine in a box" as in, flowers in a box are low-rent.That would have been funny! I don't even get this one.
7Doritos was pretty hilarious, but I hated the Teleflora ad. And don't even get me started on the Danika Patrick Go Daddy enhancement ad. Shameless, disgusting, sexist bullsh*t.
8I *DIED* over the Hulu-Alec Baldwin ad - I could not stop laughing. That's really the only one I liked, though there were several I actively disliked (ahem, REALLY annoying CareerBuilder ad).
9Um, did no one see the Careerbuilder.com commercial? That was hilarious! The woman screaming. The "guy you sit next to" with the speedo picking his toenails. LOL oh goodness! That was great.
10I loved the Clydesdales and the E-Trade baby's friend's song! However, I was really disgusted with some of the other commercials. I feel like godaddy hit a new low even for them, and the Doritos ad in which the woman's clothes were blown off bothered me. There's a difference between sexuality and demeaning/objectifying women, and you can get a laugh without encouraging the latter, IMO. The funniest commercials had babies and animals in them.
11Doritos crystal ball was the only one to make me laugh out loud. also like conan. love alec baldwin but that Hulu ad was overrated
12The E-Trade baby's commercials and the Budweiser "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" one were far and away my favorites. I adore the E-Trade baby's new singing friend!
13I LOVED the Clydesdale fetching the tree branch..it was so sweet.
I hate those E-Trade commercials..those talking babies just freak me out.
14I loved the careerbuilder.com commercial where the guy punches the koala and the doritos crystal ball one. They were fabulous.
15my very favorite was the one-second miller beer commercial!
16i only caught some...but they were a little disappointing
17The only ones I really liked were the Doritos Crystal ball ad, the talking babies from E*trade, and the Teleflora box of flowers. The one with Danica Patrick was sleazy and the CareerBuilder.com one was annoying.
18Oh I loved the Conan one too!
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