In Celebration of Commercial Success

Once a year, the United States holds a long special in which corporations debut their newest, attention-grabbing ads. Every year, the most creative minds in advertising get together to come up with a ad that outshines every other ad. This year, some companies even ran contests to allow the average person a chance for their ad to shine during the massive extravaganza. This event is known as the Super Bowl (I've heard tell they even hold some sort of contest of physical prowess to fill time between the ads). A good portion of the ads are on YouTube already. And here are the results, according only to me and my opinion:

I enjoyed the Chevy ad created by Katie Crabb, a freshman at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point, who pitched a hilarious ad featuring men who removed articles of clothing to wash a Chevy car with four young women in it (one of whom covered her eyes and said, "Tell me when it's over" much to my glee).

I also liked the fan-created Doritos ads, which even included the creator names. Very lovely.

The Blockbuster ad featured a really old joke with familiar talking animals from previous Blockbuster ads, but still managed to be somewhat funny.

The Garmin ad with Navigation Man versus a map-grown monster was also cute.

The FedEx ad with an office on the moon made me continually wince. Folks, the Moon has gravity. Really. The guy would NOT float off into space. Papers would NOT float into the air. Ug. Horrid.

CareerBuilder ads were good. The jungle office was nasty, as they were trying to portray it. I think the ads worked well.

The Coca Cola Black History ad was well-done, subtle, and striking. I hope they play it more.

Both the Toyota Tundra ads were impressive in the feats they depicted. The See Saw was particularly cool to watch. I like that they emphasize braking power as being just as important as speed and strength. Those are nothing if you can't stop the vehicle.

Connectile Dysfunction. A new term has entered the lexicon.

The only beer ad that amused me was the "He has an axe!" one, but like all beer ads it only reinforces the idea that only stupid people drink beer.

And lastly, the only ad that made me want to try the product was the delightfully surreal Emerald Nuts ad, which just bizzared its way into my mind. I've gotta try some Emerald Nuts.

So, what was your favorite, if you bothered to watch the ads?

Update: Here's IFILM's archive of Super Bowl ads.