“It was the best of times,” Charles Dickens once famously wrote, “it was the worst of times.” Ditto for January of 2008. Every year, all the hype about the advertising on the Super Bowl spills across the 49th parallel and gets me all exciting about the big game. This year, the game itself didn’t disappoint but, oh the advertising we poor Canadians were forced to watch!
Pretty much all of it was forgettable. I think there was a clever Diet Pepsi spot with a guy sitting on a photocopier in there somewhere. That’s about all I remember. You?
The worst of the lot, though, had to be the spots promoting new series on CTV. Over and over and over they played, merciless in their repetition. The spots were generic and, with all that frequency, annoying. It hardly seems like the best way to build audience anticipation for a new series. The only reason I can imagine why the good people at CTV would do this to its audience is because somehow they weren’t able to sell the airtime to actual advertisers. Pity, since more than 5 million of us tuned in to watch the game - a record here in Canada. I wonder just how many of those 5 million reached for the remote every time the same promotional spot appeared?
On a happier, “best of times,” kind of note - kudos to the good people at Post and their agency. The campaign for Diamond Shaped Shreddies is terrific. My daughter loves it and, up until recently, kept asking me if I’d seen the spot yet. I drove by a billboard for the campaign yesterday and laughed out loud. The ad is simple, acknowledges the intelligence of the audience, and is very funny. What a great way to take a tired brand and push back to the top of mind spot without driving the audience nuts.
I know, how about next year CTV offers Post an unbeatable price for advertising on the Super Bowl?
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