Super Bowl ads ranked by MSU faculty

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At Robert Kolt’s 13th annual Super Bowl party, bathroom breaks were reserved for game time, and the night was over when the last commercial played.

A group of 14 faculty members from MSU’s Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Retailing got together Sunday at the Kolt residence not to watch the game, but to rate the best and worst of the commercials. Here is the group’s top three and the worst of the night:

Best

Google: Parisian love

The television screen is blank except for a Google search box into which a person types a series of queries beginning with “Study abroad Paris, France.” The search box documents a romance between the study abroad student and a French girl as it leads into “impress a French girl” and ends with “How to assemble a crib.”

The commercial was met with a chorus of cheers, and “aw’s” erupted in Kolt’s living room at the end of Google’s commercial. “Besides being cute, that’s exactly why people use Google,” Pam Jodway said.

The commercial’s simplicity also makes it stand out, said David Regan, an instructor in the Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Retailing.

“They delivered an effective message of what they’re about, and they did it in simple way,” he said. “Sometimes some of the best commercials are the simplest.”

Budweiser: Teamwork helps beer truck

After a bridge collapses, a group of people lie down to form a human bridge for a Budweiser truck to drive across. Regan said the advertisement played on a key emotion in America.

“It delivered a message of teaming up together, which I think is timely,” he said. “It’s a key emotion in America now as we’re getting through the recession.”

Doritos: Hands off my mama

In this commercial, a man picks up his girlfriend and tries to impress her son. After the boyfriend tries to eat one of the son’s Doritos, he’s told to “Keep your hands off my Doritos, and keep your hands off my mama.”

“It’s always cute when the kid is empowered,” advertising professor Bruce VandenBergh said. “He’s the man of the family, protecting his mama.”

Worst

Walt Disney Pictures Prince of Persia

A promotion for the upcoming Disney film starring Jake Gyllenhaal, comprised of quick clips from the film.

“Movie trailers are always (boring),” VandenBergh said. “They don’t do anything interesting. They kind of cut and past scenes together. They’re forgettable.”

Sketchers Shape-Ups

Features consumer testimonials and football star Joe Montana to promote the Shape-Up shoes.

“It was truly not entertaining,” Regan said. “I think it cheapened the brand by the way the commercial looked. It was a lower brand retail feeling.”

Kolt called the ad “just awful.”

“I don’t know how that even got on,” he said. “I’d like to meet the ad executive who approved that.”

Universal Orlando

A sneak peak of the Florida theme park, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which is slated to open this spring. The ad features animated images of the park.

“The people who do movie trailers all the time — they do them the same way,” Kolt said. “They’re quick at it, with loud sounds. They don’t really tell a story … It was just quick clips.”

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