What I learned from Super Bowl 43.

There's a funny thing about the Super Bowl, it's the moment in which everybody seems to like and care about advertising. Not only that, but it's the moment in which everyone turns into an ad critic.
I've never been a die-hard football fan, I used to follow football much more about 8 years ago, but I still watch the Super Bowl every year. The only difference now is that I actually get to see the "famous" commercials, since back in Mexico we don't get to see the same commercials.
This year I went to a Super Bowl party. But it was a non-ad people Super Bowl party, which I thought could be interesting. It was. I could see first-hand how people react to ads. Real people, real ads. No over-analyzing, no judging, no awards, just reactions that take a second, gut reactions, which I think are the ones that count the most.
This is a dangerous thing, to see what people really like, and maybe even disappointing. You realize that they don't like the same stuff ad-people like, and they like the stuff that we would right away condemn.
Last year, the Brandcenter brought the people from the USA Today Ad Meter to speak, we all realized (and they made it clear too) that comedy is mostly what works at a Super Bowl. And animals seem to work pretty good too. Maybe it's the Super Bowl's environment (friends, TV, beer, guacamole) that makes people pay more attention and hence react better to funny stuff. We would say, "it's the same kick in the groin joke", and it is, but funny enough the Ad Meter was topped by an ad featuring, yes, a groin joke, which by the way was consumer generated. Now, I don't really want to get into the whole "shit, consumer generated advertising is better than..." because it's a quick judgement and even the idea of having a contest to make consumer generated ads to go into the Super Bowl came from an agency.
It reminds me of that FedEx commercial that listed the top 10 things you need to have in a Super Bowl commercial, of course kick in the groin and animals where there (bonus points for dancing animals.)
Everyday we break our heads thinking how to make things different, and every time we see something like the stuff that people like in Super Bowl ads we say it's all been done before and that no one wants to see it again. But in the end we find out that people do want to see it again. And here lies a dilemma, and I don't think we should keep doing the same stuff over and over, but then you realize what people like and... well, are we speaking the same language?


Here's that FedEx commercial.