For those of us who know nothing about football, the Super Bowl is more about what the huge brands who buy ads chose to do with their millions of dollars worth of prime eyeball time, paying to play with a captive audience in the hundreds of millions. And the technology industry always steps up to the plate; Apple aired its famous 1984 ad during the Super Bowl and so did Web 1.0 symbol Pets.com. Last year Google debuted its “Parisian Love” ad. We had quite a few tech firsts this year, including the first ever Twitter hashtag within an ad.
The Doritos pant-sniffing guy won the minds and heards of Twitter, but nonetheless it seems like the tech sector had a strong showing. Between the daily deals site commercial wars and GoDaddy’s superbowl ad suicide and all the non-tech commercials that seemed to incorporate tech elements like a hashtag in the case of Audi #ProgressIs and The Chevy Cruise ad that inadvertently encouraged Facebook stalking, the message is clear: The Internet is here to stay.
And while the tech sector made multiple appearances tonight, the biggest play was made by Rupert Murdoch’s ‘The Daily.’ Murdoch’s ad buy offered nothing distinctive branding-wise but cost $3 million dollars, which means that he could have offered a year subscription at $40 to 75K people instead of buying the ad. Something tells me that might have been a better strategy.
In the meantime, here’s a roundup of this year’s tech related ads in order of appearance (I’m including online-only properties like Cars.com), with some honorary mentions at the end. You can find my snarky commentary about each on Twitter, as always.
By the way, I have no idea which team actually won.
Groupon: Save The Money, Whales
LivingSocial: Changed My Life
AT&T: Don’t Be Left Behind
Go Daddy : Joan Rivers
Teleflora.com: Faith Hill, Rack
Motorola Xoom Tablet: Empower The People
Careerbuilder: Parking Lot
Carmax.com
Chatter: Will.i.am #1
Chatter: Will.i.am # 2
The Daily: America Meet The Daily
Cars.com: #1
E*Trade: #1
Best Buy: How Many Bloody Gs Are There Any ways?
Homeaway.com: #1
Groupon: Save The Money, Tibet
Carmax: #2
Go Daddy # 2: The Contract
Cellular South: Samsung Galaxy S
Verizon: Rule The Air
E*trade: #2
Honorary tech ads:
Chevy: Best First Date Ever
AT&T: #2
Bridgestone: Reply All
Audi: Release The Hounds #ProgressIs
Rio: Sans Angry Birds