Super Bowl XLIV: Where was all the excitement?

Drew Brees and his son (Image credit to tvbythenumbers.com). My favorite picture from the entire night.

Last night’s Super Bowl was overall- how shall I say it- a little lackluster in every way possible.

I thought the game would be an epic match-up between two teams that dominated their divisions all through the regular and post seasons.  The half-time performance was from a band that’s legendary, with four decades of music under their belts.  And the advertising?  That’s always the best part of Super Bowl Sunday, especially for advertising nerds like myself.

I’m one of those rare girls who actually sits down on Sundays and watches football all day- doesn’t matter what team is playing.  If it’s football, I watch it.  End. of. story. After last year’s Cardinals/Steelers match up (YAWN- I remember the NFC Championship being more exciting than the Super Bowl last year), I couldn’t WAIT to see these two great teams play each other.  I was surprised to see a game that didn’t get me as excited as some regular season games, though.  Very few penalties, one sneak onside kick, ONE challenge, and one interception later and the Saints won the Super Bowl.

As for half-time, I’m sorry.  I did not like The Who’s performance.  If I wanted to hear all the songs from CSI, I would watch the show. I think we should start a petition for Lady Gaga as Super Bowl Half Time performer 2011.

Lastly, the advertising.  Where are the days where the Super Bowl was the industry’s showcase of new and innovative talent and creativity?  The last few years have shown the opposite.  Save very few advertisements from this year (to see all the ads from this year’s Super Bowl, click here, curtsey of AdAdge.com).  I loved the Google ad about studying in Paris.  The Snickers commercial with Betty White was hysterical.  I also loved the CareerBuilder.com commercial about casual Fridays and could only imagine how that would go down in my office.  The VW commercial was good too, though I’m a little biased- a friend from college works on the VW account.  And of course, the Doritos commercial with the little kid was awesome.  And where was all the social media?  I only remember the E*TRADE commercials mentioning any kind of social media efforts, which were only their pages on YouTube and Facebook.

But that’s it?  Those are the only ones I found interesting?  Maybe my standards are a little higher now that I studied advertising and graduated already.

Who knows?  I was also surprised at the lack of diversity in companies that advertised.  Two words: the economy.  The current economic status is not ideal for multi-million dollar 30-second television advertising spots.  We all know that’s why only few companies advertised last night.  However, my boss suggested that the reason why the ads were generally lacking was the fact that since the spots were so expensive, they couldn’t afford the creative talent to create the ad.  If that’s the case, why spend so much money on the ad in the first place?

What is your take on this year’s Super Bowl- all aspects of the night?  How creative do you think the advertising was?  Are the days of creative showcase in the Super Bowl over?  What can advertisers do to reinstate the superior quality of ads during the Super Bowl? Anyone else see other social media for other companies other than E*TRADE?

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