With over 100 million views, Super Bowl commercials have recently developed into their own entity; they have become another form of entertainment – as big as the half-time show. Large portions of people watch football secondary to these high-budget shorts that command up to $4 million for 30 seconds of airtime. Believe it or not, car commercials dominate most of that airtime, and we will show you why with our top five picks.
Kia’s Tribute to The Matrix Films
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ob-wn52Dkmk
Laurence Fishburne reprises his role as Morpheus from The Matrix trilogy in this blast from the past. He appears when an unsuspecting couple meets Morpheus at a valet stand, and they are given a choice between a red key and a blue key. They choose the red key and never look at luxury the same again, as Kia metaphorically compares their luxury standards to that of seeing reality for the first time. A witty and fun ad, but it fails to tell us anything about the car other than its name. That said, who cares about car specs in the middle a football game anyway?
Jaguar Shows Why Being Evil is Lucrative
The latest installment of Jaguars “Good to be Bad” marketing campaign gives us an indulgence of V8 bellows, helicopters and general bad-assery. In an effort to separate themselves from their German and American rivals, Jaguar have put together an ad where obscenely wealthy super villains from all the recent blockbusters demonstrate what being rich is all about. Not surprisingly, the commercial involves lots of British accents, expensive suits and yes, you guessed it, luxury cars. It’s clear that Jaguar is trying to change their demographic from retired stock brokers to young businessmen, and we wish them all the luck in the world. This is the same challenge that Cadillac is facing as well, but that’s a story for another time.
Hyundai Provides Dating Tips
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yWiPEe-RiCM
I have nothing good to say about this commercial other than the song “Evil Woman” is kind of a catchy tune. Here we see Jonathan Galecki embarrassing himself by a lame attempt at courting a woman who is driving the same new Hyundai as him, which we found to be a bit on the cringe worthy side. The “story” involves random obstacles spurting up from the ground – for no reason at all – until poor Galecki ends up flying through strategically placed rings of fire. Admittedly, this ad would have been a complete dud if it wasn’t for the hilarious cameo appearance of Richard Lewis – who saves it from mediocrity in the last few seconds.
Audi and a Bunch of Really Weird Dogs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gZQogu_rt9Y
This Audi A3 ad was definitely a weird one since it didn’t make much sense – but hey, these commercials almost never do anyway. A young couple is interested in purchasing a dog and can’t decide between a Chihuahua and a Doberman, so they compromise on a genetically mutated “Doberhuahua.” Chaos ensues as the Doberhuahuas wind up destroying an entire city – right after being entered into a dog show and receiving negative scores. Turns out, the moral of the story is not to compromise. Who knew? Yet despite all these oddities, the visuals are amusing, and the scene in which one of the dogs chews up Sarah McLachlan’s guitar is undeniably chuckle-worthy.
Volkswagen Engineers Grow Wings and Rediscover Their Virility
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ns-p0BdUB5o
In this ad, Volkswagen engineers sprout angel wings from their backs and start floating around, whilst still working on new cars. It’s clear that the wings symbolize the engineers’ newly rediscovered virility – almost as if they’re aroused by working at a Volkswagen plant. It’s especially obvious in the scene in which a man’s wings accidentally touch a woman’s bum inside an elevator, prompting her to slap him. And right after that, we see a man with smaller wings stare enviously at a man with larger wings near a urinal – to confirm that these wings aren’t actually wings. The commercial ends with a precarious fact: that Volkswagen has the most cars on the road with over 100,000 miles. We have no reason to believe this bit of info since this is just a commercial, but we sure enjoyed the ride to get here.
