Advertisers can justify the exorbitant prices they pay to advertise on the Super Bowl because of all the pre- and post-game publicity they get... esp. if their ads are popular hits.

I was interested to read that this year Dove will be advertising a new men's skincare line, Dove Men+Care. Dove's advertising for women (the so-called Campaign for Real Beauty) is quite well-known, particularly the Evolution ad--here, with 10 million views on YouTube).

I'm curious to see how Dove will promote the men's skincare line that both impacts the manly-man Super Bowl viewer and is consistent with Dove's touchy-feely, self-esteem boosting main message.

Here's a Dove Men+Care ad. And, interesting, they have a shower tool (how manly, a tool!). Pretty clever insight: men like gadgets and tools.

I don't think Dove gets it. Axe and Old Spice are successful because their ads are funny (if you like that type of humor). The touchy-feely stuff Dove is using won't work.

And as Outsports mentions in the Jock Talk blog, there's the Tim Tebow/Focus on the Family commercial to look forward to. Focus on the Family's press release:


Advertising Age's list of who's bought spots on the Super Bowl.

Budweiser asking Facebook fans to choose which commercial it will air during the Super Bowl.

Here's one for ya...provided by none other than "fair and balanced"...

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2010/...-ad-super-bowl/

I wonder why they decided to cover this story? Maybe it is all part of being "fair and balanced"...LOL

This commentary on "Civil Rights and the Superbowl" gets it. Though I doubt that the author's suggestion will - or should - get much traction among football fans.

Boycotting the Bowl in this country is just not going to be an effective political statement. Try dropping out of society all together instead.

Better to advocate for an ad by the US military that deliberately recruits gays and lesbians for next years Superbowl. Such recruitment happened in England after they allowed gays to serve openly, albeit on a lesser scale than the main sporting event.

But we tend to do things bigger once we're big enough to do them.

Regardless of legislation the Obama administration is making it clear that things are changing with respect to DADT.

It can only be a matter of time before the ads for the military become "orientation-neutral" at the very least and more inclusive at best. Maybe they will even make better use of those Spartacus-like visuals we love.

Oh yeah, an addendum to Jim's Superbowl primer. Some might be wondering - like me - why Saints fans make such a big deal about men wearing a dress to show support for their favorite bayou team.

Well it all boils down to a frivoluos promise by a dejected fan who died in 2005.

The only good I can see coming out of this is that a few more men might learn how idiotic it is to walk a mile in high-heeled shoes.

CBS - Super Bowl's Greatest Commercials

TIME - Best and Worst Super Bowl Commercials of 2009

I like the Bud Light one haha...

Well, the Tebow thing was not what I expected -- figured it would be solemn & preachy. So they were smart, marketing-wise. Still, $2M is a lot to spend in the hope that people will go to your website for the punchline, so to speak.

I have never seen so many Bud Light ads in my life -- did they double their buy over last year? The Simpsons for Coke? WTF? Not sure if CBS promos count in the "official" tally, but the Leno/Oprah/Letterman bit was pretty funny. But seriously, it's scary how terrified straight guys are of being pussy-whipped (or how much ad agencies think they are).

We don't get the American commercials up here in Canada (enough with the promos for CTV's Olympic coverage already!), so please tell us what y'all are seeing.

I've heard there were a couple of "pantsless" ads. What's that all about? (Edit to add: NY Times Media Decoder blog is blogging the commercials... ooh, and they've just embedded some of the commercials. Now I've seen the pantsless ads. And somebody tweeted this I Wear No Pants song on YouTube.)

The Tebow spots were much ado about nothing. What a disappointment. Indeed, they looked like eHarmony ads. And why was he tackling his mom? He's a QB... they don't tackle nobody. And where was dad? If their message was family, shouldn't they be showing a mother and father? Isn't that their message?

And what about that Budweiser ad with the horse and longhorn? Was that same-sex horse-cow love, or what?

Oh, now the halftime show is coming on. The Who! Pinball Wizard! Hello, 1969!

I'm a lifelong Who fan but that was pretty awful. Easily the worst of the "safe", older-demo halftime shows, post-"wardrobe malfunction". I predict the NFL will go in a new (non-geezerish) direction next year.

Was that a (stereotypical-looking) gay couple in the Megan Fox Motorola commercial? Hmm...

As I mentioned on my blog (blatant plug! ) I couldn't really hear any of the commercials at the bar. I was surprised to see the Simpsons' Coke ad because I hadn't heard any advance word about it. I was stunned to see Jay Leno with Oprah and Dave. I almost like Leno again. The rest mostly looked stupid. I'll have to see the one with Betty White and Abe Vigoda to see if I like it when I hear the dialogue.

It wasn't as bad as I thought too. I was expecting much more and I'm glad I can still like Tebow on the side!!

After missing the last three Super Bowls due to travel, I was looking forward to seeing yesterday's game, and had hoped that maybe this time Canadian viewers would get to see some of the same commercials that Americans see. But on both CBS-HD stations I receive (Seattle and Detroit), all ads continued to be blocked, except for one Budweiser commercial, I think. Instead, CTV insisted on reminding us every two minutes that the Olympics begin this week. But the game itself (or at least the second half) was entertaining and I was happy to see the Saints win.

2010 USA TODAY Ad MeterSM tracks Super Bowl XLIV ads

The ads overall weren't great. The Letterman-Oprah-Lenothing would have been EPIC if it had ended with Conan coming out, as if returning from the bathroom, and saying to Leno "Hey you took my seat."

I missed the Tebow ad(s)...guess my trips to the kitchen or bathroom were well timed! Betty White & Abe Vigoda was good. And the chickens for Denny's were funny at first but grew tiresome. I have to estimate that Budweiser must have spent $100 million last night! Okay, not quite but they had alot of ads.

I couldn't agree more. Every damn commercial had some average to unattractive guy doing some knock-off "The Hangover" type thing. They all sucked. Why do advertisers love to make straight guys look like schmucks? And would it kill to have a hot guy in one of the commercials?

The best commercials were: Jay Leno, Oprah, and Dave commercial and the lovely Mark Sanchez in a fitted white shirt talking about heart disease.

Most of the ads ranged from meh to outright offensive. There was one outright winner (the Snickers-Betty White ad) and a handful that were mildly charming (such as the Coke-Simpsons ad -- it took 2 viewings to pick out Bart shaking the Coke bottle before giving it to Homer to open).

Technically, the Dave-Oprah-Jay ad doesn't count because it was just a CBS promo. It was the most brilliant bit the entire night, though.

This thread makes me relieved that I couldn't watch the game due to a power failure caused by the snow storm.

God truly does work in mysterious ways.

A lot of egg on face from the protesters of the Tebow ad. All that objection, all that solemn declaring that there shouldn't be anything so divisive on because it's the Super Bowl!....all the Pavlovian bleeting about the one ad while indulgent beer commercials and babes pulling off their shirts and using their bodies to sell product went unchallenged by the "women's rights" crowd.

Instead of being pro-choice, so many Nowites have shown themselves to be anti-anti-abortion. Nothing wrong with that, it's the intellectual dishonesty of saying you're pro-choice when you're not. The hypocrisy drips more than the rainy season in the Amazon. Worthy of the Christians who cast stones and yet turn out to be sinners themselves and then get fingered for their hypocrisy. Hmmm, except the fundamentalist, far-right wing Christians (to many those are redundant descriptions) aren't known to be thinking people. Whereas those who support "choice" are understood to be intellectually advanced.

By far the best ad for impact and meaning, even if the value was not the ad but the illumination.

Otherwise I liked Google commercial. A couple others were ok. But most were like most commercials to me...make me glad I have a mute button on the remote. They spend so much on running the ad...maybe the budget for development has to be minimal.

It illuminated nothing. Plenty of women have problems during pregnancy and go on to have healthy babies. Why would Mrs. Tebow be special in that regard? The ad doesn't say. It could have been an ad for Kleenex or Downy or anything. No impact at all except for the controversy created by CBS and its caving to the ultra right-wing nuts -- the same nuts claiming to want less government, except when they want to prevent women from controlling their own bodies or ban same-sex couples from getting married. Now THAT'S hypocrisy!

You miss the point, Joe, both of my comment and the ad, it seems. What a straw man...who said Mrs. Tebow was special? She's telling a story...the fact that others experience it also doesn't make her special or any less special. And the ad was not about "family" as a previous poster tried to put on it. It was a woman telling her story to women who might be in a similar position. Not a man, which seems to trip up so many people. But a woman...talking about her difficult pregnancy and difficult decision. About her difficult choice.

Later in your post you do seem to recognize that the ad had impact, although you're still dismissive of the impression I got. Which, by the way, isn't for you to tell me I didn't.

As I explained, the illumination was of the true attitude of some of the "pro-choice" people, the Nowites, who couldn't howl loud enough about this before it aired. Then, when it was aired and it was not the horrible denounciation of abortion that they expected it to be, they were found out. Their attitude is not "pro-choice" but rather "pro-abortion". That is illuminating.

I mean, perhaps you already knew that and didn't find the revelation to be illuminating. But all the controversy did put a light on some things that couldn't be spun. At least, I know I had been accepting of the "pro-choice" description that they are pro-choice, including the choice not to have an abortion. And that, by extension, they would be respectful and accepting of contrary beliefs. Btw, did you hear that NOW is has dropped the objection because of the (non) denounciation of abortioin and is now saying it was a very bad ad because it supports domestic violence, or something along those lines? To use a football analogy (Super Bowl ad, Heisman trophy winning football player...having him tackle in the ad keeps with the setting): NOW, sometimes it's better just to punt. You got sacked. Get off the field and come back later.

That is what I thought this ad illuminated. And now, it seems to be illuminating your attitude as well. They're now "ultra" right wing "nuts"? Can't wait to see the next round of labels.

And....because they are hypocrites does not make NOW any less hypoctrical, does it? Nor does it excuse it, does it? If somehow it does, then when the Ultras are hypocritical again, you lose credibility in calling them on it. Like NOW has.

By making that ad Tim Tebow and his mother were boasting about having received the blessing of his apparently healthy birth, deliberately giving the impression that their "faith" caused it. They can not prove it.

Let's see them air an ad with a woman talking about how much better her life is because she had an abortion!

Because I am dismissive of it. Because for that group, and its supporters (of which you are apparently one) it's not REALLY about her difficult decision. It's ALL about forcing the rest of us to live by the archaic "religious" rules they want us to live by, even though they themselves don't live by them all. They pick and choose based on their own biases.

Mrs. Tebow had a choice (if you believe her story, and not that abortion was ILLEGAL in the Phillipines at the time she was there, meaning she really had NO choice). Now she, Tim and the people they are working for want to ensure that NO OTHER WOMAN CAN MAKE THEIR OWN CHOICE. They want to force every pregnant woman to give birth no matter the circumstances.

Although the Betty White Snickers ad was the most popular on the Super Bowl, I think Snickers' ad with Aretha Franklin and Liza Minelli is better and funnier. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLrsCnBvQFo

Your assumptions are astounding. My point was that NOW and others who so strenuously objected to this are hypocritical. And that I had not realized that before, because I had accepted NOWs presentation that they are pro-choice first and foremost. That was my point, Joe.

And then, my second point was how they are trying to spin their way out of it instead of owning their overreaction. They are not less hypocritical because you can't stand the ultra right wingers and see them as hypocritical. Or because you object so virulently to their faith or the way they put their faith forth.

So, if you want to assume that I'm a supporter of what you've labeled ultra right wing etc., then you will do so. I wouldn't begin to try to convince you otherwise, not after I've seen how dismissive you are of opinion and someone else's insight or discovery.

A word of caution though. Just because you assume it to be, does not make it so. Dismiss all you want. You have that right. Just as they do to put forth their sputum. To be clear, I don't give a flying fig if you are dismissive of what I have said. Such an attitude reveals a mind closed. And a mind closed is hardly worth talking to once it is recognized as such. Whether it's ultra right wing or ultra left. Both types of birds leave a trail of feathers and refuse in their wake.

Hope you get what your looking for as you spew forth. I'm done with this conversation.