Superbowl
Evan takes on the world's most commercialized sporting event
Evan Brest
Issue date: 3/2/10 Section: Opinion
Another super bowl game has come and gone. Two teams took to the field of glory and one came back victorious. Field goals, touchdowns, and herculean effort put forth by both teams to drive the brown ellipsoid into the scoring region of the opposing team's half of the field. But enough about the game, on to the commercials!
Thankfully, this year's batch was leaps and bounds ahead of last year's comparative belly flop in the advertising department. We may still be in the grips of a depression, but that does not mean that multi-million dollar ads for products we may not even like or use are any less desired. My personal favorite ad was the Old Spice ad involving "the man your man could smell like". It seems to have hit my "butter zone of advertising" where it is still creative and funny even after hearing it several times. Many ads fail this critical test where it is interesting the first time, but quickly degrades to annoying after a short while. Even worse are the ads that are bad the first time and steadily slide into the "crap zone" of overplayed and not original.
Moving right along and out of a self induced gripe on commercials, back to the super bowl proper. Not the game, mind you, but the second greatest part of the event: Halftime. Every year, a new performer or group gets the honor to stand on a quickly built stage in the middle of a field surrounded by thousands of cheering people with explosions and lasers zinging all around. This year's lucky group was the famous band "The Who". A British bunch doing a medley of pieces of their their most famous songs. While the performance was not as memorable as the infamous "wardrobe malfunction" of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, where millions of people instantly coveted TiVo, The Who's performance was nonetheless brilliant from a musical standpoint.
To be sure, I love the super bowl. I just don't like the whole football part of it. Does this make me not American? Possibly. But on the other hand, what's more patriotic than consumerism and Rock and Roll?
Thankfully, this year's batch was leaps and bounds ahead of last year's comparative belly flop in the advertising department. We may still be in the grips of a depression, but that does not mean that multi-million dollar ads for products we may not even like or use are any less desired. My personal favorite ad was the Old Spice ad involving "the man your man could smell like". It seems to have hit my "butter zone of advertising" where it is still creative and funny even after hearing it several times. Many ads fail this critical test where it is interesting the first time, but quickly degrades to annoying after a short while. Even worse are the ads that are bad the first time and steadily slide into the "crap zone" of overplayed and not original.
Moving right along and out of a self induced gripe on commercials, back to the super bowl proper. Not the game, mind you, but the second greatest part of the event: Halftime. Every year, a new performer or group gets the honor to stand on a quickly built stage in the middle of a field surrounded by thousands of cheering people with explosions and lasers zinging all around. This year's lucky group was the famous band "The Who". A British bunch doing a medley of pieces of their their most famous songs. While the performance was not as memorable as the infamous "wardrobe malfunction" of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, where millions of people instantly coveted TiVo, The Who's performance was nonetheless brilliant from a musical standpoint.
To be sure, I love the super bowl. I just don't like the whole football part of it. Does this make me not American? Possibly. But on the other hand, what's more patriotic than consumerism and Rock and Roll?
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