BITCHES
Yesterday I had a chance to watch a few of the Superbowl Ads. Some were good, some maybe not so good. It’s easy for me to critique a movie with my comments on how it could have been better, especially not having made a movie… yet; but I am totally qualified to comment on the dog eared ads I saw yesterday on the Superbowl, because I actually had made one. Below is an ad I did back in the day. It got plenty of play on network TV but didn’t actually air on the Superbowl that year.
So, anyway, yesterday, throughout the 2012 Superbowl, there was the one where the dog strikes back, the one where the dog blackmails his owner for a bag of Nachos and the one where the French Poodle win’s the race. I thought they were all watchable and entertaining. I also thought they were a bit doofy and am not exactly sure they delivered the essential truth or key benefit of the product they were trying to sell.
Fat dogs to skinny dogs to Darth Vader is more a wink and nod to last year’s VW ad than any kind of persuasion to buy VWs this year. The Nacho thing, yeah, cute, but sometimes I think those ads are more for the creative director to add to his or her portfolio than for the client to sell more chips. And the Sketcher Ad with the little dog winning the race over the greyhounds… well it was silly and quite frankly did make me think about running out and getting a pair.
It’s easy to bitch, and for me, almost any ad can be made better if there is a dog in it.
Barry Stein's Blog 
Clever title to your blog. The ad you posted should have made the Super Bowl! I thought that a lot of the commercials this year were mediocre at best.
Yeah ML… it’s a lot like the Margaret Thatcher quote, the difference between saying and doing. But they are mostly brand message type ads, looking for maximum reach to make an impression on as many people as possible, rather than actually selling anything. And of course, that could be a good impression or maybe not so good.
Hey Cool! I remember that ad. very nice. clever and too the point. You don’t have to wonder what the ad was selling, what it’s point was or even what product it was for. that can’t be said for a large percentage of recent ads.
Very nice.