Advertising, ad campaigns, ad agencies, and the people that make it happen

There's plenty of sites, AdAge and Adweek for just two, where you can watch all the ads and get reviews. So I'm not going to talk about particular spots per se, more about overall impressions. And to be honest, I wasn't too impressed. Yes, there were a few, but only a few, good spots. There were quite a few bad spots, and lots of stuff that was simply mediocre. Which when you consider the going rate was $2.7 million for thirty seconds, plus production costs, with most of the spots looking like several million had gone into high production values... You have to ask yourself, why would you blow that amount of money on such mundane work? OK in the case of "Sales Genie" the spots were cheap, but they were also extremely racist. Surprising as they were written by the CEO, who happens to be an Indian immigrant. So, to any CEO's reading this... First rule of Super Bowl advertising... NEVER write your own spots, particularly if you can't see that they are extremely offensive. Many of the spots relied, as usual, on the borrowed interest of movie/sports/music stars etc. Others were rip-offs of movies, TV shows and in the case of one footwear manufacturer, a rip off of the classic Apple 1984 spot... Surely the dumbest idea of all... If you must rip something off... Second Rule of Super Bowl advertising... NEVER rip-off a classic, you'll only come off badly in the comparison. And the third and final rule of Super Bowl advertising... NEVER advertise on the Super Bowl unless you can make an inviolable case that it will generate massive sales. Forget all the branding bullshit the agency tries to shove down your throat. What you need to do is make about $5 million extra PROFIT from running one ad for thirty seconds. If you can't. Take everyone that works for you on a Caribbean cruise instead... You'll see a much better return on the money. And your workers will bust their chops for you and love you forever, unlike the people seeing your $5 million spot one time surrounded by about a hundred others.

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You can say that again!