I do think it has become trite to say you watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. Honestly, the commercials just aren’t that innovative and entertaining. There are always some that come off as fun, funny, and forgettable and some that are epic and change the landscape of advertising for years to come.
As much as I loved the game, I was really disappointed in the commercials. Not that I wanted them to be funny and epic, but because I was hoping for more social media integration. There I was, watching the game while posting on Twitter which updates my Facebook and FriendFeed. I was primed and ready to visit URLs, follow Twitter accounts, become a fan of a site… ready to engage with the advertisers within the social media framework. They offered me nothing. The closest thing that came close to interesting interaction was the Call Barney Stinson promo CBS did for How I Met Your Mother.
Where were the Twitter accounts for the brands that would allow me to ask questions about the brand and get real time answers? Caprica has a twitter account for the robot that appears in the show that lets the audience ask questions about people, places, and events that appear in the show. That account is @sergegraystone and it is an amazing little touch that adds personality to something that would have normally just been maybe a wiki page. Instead of innovation, we got a bunch of branding attempts that felt like a throwback to the Spuds Mckenzie days of misogyny, sexism, and stupidity. Why were there so many commercials with men without pants? Okay, that is an unnecessary tangent.
I think for all the money spent on these commercials, these brands failed to connect to an audience that expects and is beginning to demand more interaction with the companies they do business with.
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