Guest bloggers: STEPHEN VOLTZ & FRITZ GROBE
 • Stephen Voltz & Fritz Grobe are partners in crime at EepyBird and made headlines last year with their Diet Coke/Mentos experiments.
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Sunday, Feb. 4, 2007, 7:01 p.m.
We finally got our streaming connection going just in time for kickoff—and the first touchdown. We’re piping the Super Bowl in over a regular phone line at 9 megs. It’s a new world. After the shock of the kickoff return wore off, the Blockbuster commercial dragging the mouse was the big hit here. The Doritos user-generated ad wasn’t our choice, but got great laughs. It just needs a stronger ending. The SalesGenie ad got actual boos from the room here in Buckfield (Maine). Mind you, we are still talking about how much we didn’t like it, so did it do it’s job?
8:40 p.m.
It seems the only options are taking it all the way or dropping the ball. How about some solid football?
The Chevy music montage lost us very quickly. It didn’t go anywhere—just too random. Bud Light is winning the day so far—rock/paper/scissors, the wedding auction, and no speak English. They know what they’re doing. They’ve owned the Super Bowl for years and are showing that they still do. Those are good water cooler laughs.
Kudos to Letterman & Oprah. Letterman gets you curious about where this is going ... then, nice surprise with Oprah. If they had done the Snickers kissing commercial, that would have been good. So far, Snickers was the worst of the day —gay, straight, male, female—the whole room booed that one.
So we’re still talking about how much we didn’t like Sales Genie. Not bad enough to be fun bad, just bad bad. I think we’re only paying attention because we’re media geeks.
The Coke video game gone nice was nice, but not my favorite—it needed some Diet Coke & Mentos fountains, not just fire hydrant spray. It was a hit in the room, with the kids and adults both getting involved and appreciating the story. Brian, age 10, asked us to mention that the kids really liked it.
As W. C. Fields said, you can’t compete with children and animals. The Bud dalmation wannabe was engaging and not too cloying. The branding was very light on this, which we appreciated. The light branding becomes strong when, at the end of the evening, we’re thinking: if we’re laughing, it must be Bud.
Mixed reaction on Garmin. Unlike Sales Genie, this is fun bad. Fun enough for thumbs up from Fritz, bad enough for thumbs down from Stephen.
The football’s getting more exciting—we’re having trouble paying attention to the commercials and continuing to type. With New England not in the game, go Colts!
We just finished the quietest ad break of the night. The Bud Light spot where everyone is slapping each other and BeatYourRisk.com got polite reactions at best. Slaps went for
slapstick and forgot the comedy—it’s in the little reactions. Just one of those reactions worked and gave the ad it’s one, lonesome laugh.
BeatYourRisk.com kept us involved, but failed to deliver a resolution. Save the guy! He’s getting dragged off and thrown around—who will save him? Where’s the BeatYourRisk guy to show up in the nick of time? Without some hope introduced at the end, we’ve got no interest in going to the Web site. We’re just sad.
Let’s go back and look at the user generated stuff. All professional, so calling it user-generated is a bit too simple. The Doritos and Chevy spots have been very strong. Nicely involving, different, and great comedic timing. Go users!
Connectile dysfunction for Sprint. Funny concept. Weak execution. Call your doctor if your connection lasts more than four hours! Or a woman walks up to a guy sitting with his laptop—“Do you have a connection?” His signal only goes up a few bars ... “That’s okay, it happens ...” It’s a bit counterintuitive, but usually true: it’s less offensive if you go all the way with the concept, more uncomfortable if you only go halfway. If you’re going to go there, really go there! This was such a missed opportunity.
8:28 p.m.
Okay—that was a great half-time show. It’s such a difficult thing to do: be great in the stadium and be great on TV. They did a fantastic job. Lots of great choices, from the stage to the songs to the choice of shots. What blew us away was the real sense of grandeur: effective use of the marching band, great shots of huge beams of light, insane
pyrotechnics, mixed with strong personal moments: Prince’s virtuosic playing, his beautiful investment in the songs, especially the Hendrix ... All around, kicked the Stones’ collective butts.
9:01 p.m.
That was an ugly field goal. Football in the rain. Gotta love it.
Don’t mean to beat a laughing horse, but Bud Light keeps getting ’em. Gorillas had nice laughs—setting up the expectation of a big leap. Then taking a great left turn forgetting the plan. Well-executed comedy!
Heading the contest for Most Ordinary: Revlon/Sheryl Crow and Van Heusen. Sheryl Crow was a nice change of pace and might actually sell product. Exciting it was not. Of course it wasn’t aimed at us. (Especiallly me! —Stephen.)
CareerBuilder.com, exciting it was! Again, great, consistent imagery in this sequel. They really are taking the premise all the way. It’s in the small touches: “You don’t even work here!” What a great touch.
9:41 p.m.
Best surreal moment of the day: Robert Goulet messes with your stuff. Points to Emerald Nuts for Best Use of a Self-Mocking Celebrity. The G-Man handily beat K-Fed on that front.
To continue to harp on Bud Light, they really understand the concept of a comedic button: at the end of each ad is a nice extra laugh. You finish with “He’s got a chainsaw,” and even though it’s not the biggest laugh of the ad, everyone giggles. That’s good comedy technique.
Then comes the crabs on the beach—the only one that hasn’t really worked. No button, and not much comedy, period. That should’ve been the first draft, not the finished product.
10:04 p.m.
Apparently missed the Flomax ad—I was in the bathroom.
Quick check: what ads can we still remember? A poll of the room reveals: Blockbuster mouse dragging, CareerBuilders (voted Most Effective for the Brand), all the Bud Light ads were funny, Robert Goulet for Emerald Nuts, still intrigued by the badness of Sales Genie. Can you tell we’ve got a bunch of comedy writers in the room?
Our favorite moment of the night: trying to explain the rules of football to our friend Mike. He still doesn’t quite get it. Maybe next year ...
Snapple did a better job with their satirical product placement in 30 Rock than their ad in the Super Bowl. The button was okay, but would have been stronger self-directed: mock yourself, not the monk.
10:32 p.m.
Nice game. Some good ads. So over GoDaddy—nothing new there. Kudos to Prince. Car commercials were sad. Bud Light was strong as usual. CareerBuilder.com wins the prize. Hooray for Peyton Manning & Tony Dungy! We’re going to Disneyland!
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