DId You See What I Saw?

(Note: I can't get the links to appear consistently with Google's new editor. If it's brief and boldfaced, you can click on it and "go" somewhere interesting!)

It's been at least 20 years since I've watched a Super Bowl Game, and Super Bowl 45 was definitely worth watching--a classic game between good teams.What I saw between plays, however, was anything but good. The best word to describe the Super Bowl commercials is: horrifying. (Volkswagen's little Darth Vader spot and BMW's commercial about Spartanburg were clear exceptions.) 


In ads for Pepsi Max people get smashed in the head with a full can, and a man is hit in the testicles and other body parts by cans someone catapults from a can-throwing machine at a party.  Insurance company Safe Auto shows a man being kicked, hit, and assaulted--again with more shots targeted at his genitals. Career Builder's commercial introduces us to a man in a car pulling into a parking lot. His car is bashed in on one side by driving monkeys, and before he can open the passenger door, another set of driving monkeys bashes in the other side.  Would watching a school teacher drive her red Camaro off a building and into her school's parking lot inspire you to buy that car for your son or daughter?  Perhaps the worst is the Snickers commercial, set at a logging camp, where a swinging log rams Roseanne Barr in her thoracic region and drives her to the ground. Had that occurred in "real" life, she'd be disabled or dead.

The Doritos commercials are deranged.  A red-haired man teases a pug with a Dorito, the pug jumps at a glass door, unhinges it, and crushes the man beneath the door. Man's girlfriend sits on couch, and man's best friend snuggles with the bright red Doritos bag. Even more à la derange, however, was the finger-sucking, pants-sniffing Doritos commercial. It inescapably looked like they were trying to promote Doritos as a substitute for cocaine.

Of course, there was sexual content, too.  Sign up for Social Living, and perhaps you, too, can turn into a transvestite / transgendered and happier person.  Or have a stare at the GoDaddy girls--you can see more online, because they can't put the full-fleshed commercial on television.  If that doesn't do it for you, there's Kim Kardashian's perfect behind to gaze upon in a commercial for butt-firming shoes. 

You can see all the commercials, and even vote for or against them at Fox Sports.  You can also vote on some of the commercials in just seconds at the CBS Website. I hope you will do this. We need to send a message to these companies and their advertising agencies. According to The Hollywood Reporter: "TV viewers love watching comedian Roseanne get knocked silly by a giant log." If you think this makes for bad advertising, for adults and especially for children and teens, then you need to let advertisers know that one TiVo survey does not consenus make.

We've had quite a debate about civility after the shooting in Tucson that killed six innocent people and forever altered the life of Gabrielle Giffords. Then, for entertainment and persuasion, we see people assaulted with drink cans, a woman kick a man in the "nuts," a woman rammed with a tree, and a man sucking Dorito powder up his nose. There is nothing civil about any of this. These commercial messages don't meet and often violate William Menninger's Seven Criteria of Emotional Maturity, often seen as the foundation for determining what, exactly, constitutes mental health.

I've worked in the advertising and marketing world for more than 25 years. You can be creative and engender significant sales without resorting to perversion. You can indeed get people's attention with fun, clean, and healthy creative.  The Volkswagen commercial is the best example of this from this year's Super Bowl crop. At least, it appears to me that "no humans were injured" in its filming. Also, check out Clean-Cut Media's thoughtful blog.

You can also lose business from violent, sexist commercials. I was never a big Doritos customer, but I certainly won't buy any until those ads change. And I will talk to friends and family about not buying any. I 've been a GoDaddy customer for years, but last night, watching their commercial, I thought, "It's more of the same old sexist approach." It will take time for me to shift my business from GoDaddy, but I'm looking at how best to do that today. I'm not going to check out Social Living--ever, and I will not consider an Audi purchase as long as they run commercials targeted at those "poor prisoners of luxury."

PLEASE VOTE HERE. Let advertisers know it's a crime to spend up to $3 million per 30 seconds for these idiotic dramas in an economy where hundreds of thousands are unemployed, uninsured, and have to go to charity food banks to feed their families. And  praise the ones who did a good job. They need to hear from us, too.

In the meantime, watch what you eat, watch how you drive, and above all, watch what you watch!