Adiocracy

Call us elitist, but we love this involved little story created by Google which ran during the 3rd quarter of SB. ‘Parisian Love’ shows Google functionality via a delightful little romance that -yes — requires a little involvement. Doritos it ain’t.

Which is what we found so charming about it. And while the spot yielded tons of online buzz, ricocheting and pinging around the digital echo chamber, this activity did not match its TV effect. Why? You watch slapstick, but you talk over charming. While Doritos took the top 3 of the Nielsen IAG Top 10 most-recalled spots, the Google spot  came in 43 of 63 according to USA Today. And, as far as we can tell, didn’t make a single top 10 recalled list.

We say, cheers to Google for showing its human side and for giving viewers a little credit. And in terms of reaching audience, even though it’s not showing up on any of the Most Tweeted lists either, (Snickers and Betty White on top) we’d say Google knows exactly where its buzz is buttered.

We found this Super Bowl ad by the bloated Charles Barkley to be a pretty ridiculous choice for Taco Bell. Of all the aging players they could have picked, why choose a guy who’s practically flaunted his overweight-ness to sell their super high fat, super high cal meal deal. Watch him shimmy his girth through the phone booth while he raps a la Dr. Seuss.

There are a thousand spokesguys Taco Bell could have chosen that would not have pointed their bellies directly at the unhealthy qualities of its menu. BTW, we saw David Robinson at MJ’s Hall of Fame induction. He’s still looking lean and mean. We think CB is a bad brand choice for TB, made even more apparent, we think, by the Lamar Odom cameo.

We think Betty White has been overexposed a bit. Even more than Abe Vigoda. But in this sweetly simple spot for Snickers by BBDO, she takes a hit for the candy bar and delivers her own snap-back with a touch of believable street sass, completely devoid of any cutesy grandma wink. We think the spot is an inspired way to sell Snickers’ energy promise, no matter how much of a stretch we believe that promise may be.

And we’re not the only one. Nielsen rated it the #1 Best-Liked and the #7 Most-Recalled Super Bowl spot.

The Superbowl got awfully confusing there at the end of the 1st quarter and into the 2nd with a flurry of ads that seemed so similar we wondered whether it was a zeitgeist or dumb coincidence. Adiocracy kept guessing Dockers (DraftFCB) on ads that turned out to be for Dodge (Weiden & Kennedy) and Dove body wash for guys (Ogilvy) and had to do shots as punishment.

All three ads showed men trying to claim, reclaim or deal with their subjugated man-ness.

Check these ads out again and tell us if you think they reflect a new era of same-ness not unlike where beer found itself a few years back when every brand was competing to own the ‘stupid man’ territory (which now Bud LIght claims alone).

And then, just when we thought we’d figured out who was wearing the pants, CareerBuilder.com threw this one at us, and we switched from beer to whiskey.