Guest blogger: MARK WNEK

• Mark Wnek is New York chairman and chief creative officer at Lowe.

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Sunday, Feb. 4, 2007, 6:23 p.m.
   While it’s no secret that I am a massive football and NY Giants fan, there’s one thing about the Superbowl that I didn’t know and that I must admit confuses me: the Vince Lombardi trophy that the teams will be playing for tonight is made by Tiffany. Shouldn’t it be made by, I dunno, US Steel? Or is this some subtle ploy to get more women viewers? I just asked my wife if this makes her more interested in tonight’s game. Her answer is not printable. Go Colts.
   By the way, I concur with all those who feel its great that the Superbowl is being contested by two African-American head coaches (although the fact that only 7 out of 119 US college coaches are African-American is less heartening) but does NOBODY but me find the Chicago coach Lovie Smith’s name hilarious? In England lovie is a camp-ish term of endearment like sweetie or pumpkin. Or the collective noun for a particularly annoying type of self-important actor. Hilarious! No? Nobody?

8:28 p.m.
   Thought the FedEx moon office spot was a bit disappointing for the money thrown at it. Like the Bid Light body of work, particularly the face slapping spot.
   Can’t believe Vinatieri just missed a 36 yarder.
   The Snickers kiss was great fun, as was the nasty video game gone good for Coke. I know I work for GM but my favorite spots so far are the car factory robot having a nightmare for the 100,000 mile warranty and the Doritos spot with the big and rib-ticklingly sexy checkout girl. I particularly like the latter for its low budget.
   CBS is not very good at staying in the moment: I can’t believe they were already selling the their upcoming pro-Bowl coverage in the first quarter of a very exciting game.

8:32 p.m.
   There seem to be two schools of thought on the Superbowl as a marketing tool. There seems to be the school which clearly believes that it is a showcase for something a bit special such as Coke and Bud and GM; and then there’s the school which perhaps just knows the audience numbers and wants to be in front of the 90 million or whatever. Salesgenius.com, for instance,  seems to fall into this category with work that doesn’t even seem to be trying that hard but is getting in front of an audience all the same. Prince was just vintage Prince: he maintained his poise in the pouring rain, didn’t he?

10:19 p.m.
   Overall, a sense of disappointment. The Coke animation was gorgeous, the Bud Light stuff a good group, the Emerald Nuts stuff with Robert Goulet ...nutty in a good way, Fedex consistently funny. Where was the genius of the Apple “1984” spot? Feels like the genius is going into different media nowadays. Really happy for Peyton Manning and Tony Dungy who seem like extraordinary people.

February 4, 2007 | Permalink