A word from our sponsors
: I’m in Florida at the iMedia conference with top online ad clients and agencies and top online publishers (I’m giving my blogboy spiel too early in the a.m.). Tonight, ESPN.com is playing host to a Super Bowl party, of course, with wings and cheeseburgers and commercials. Ad Age ad critic Bob Garfield (also On The Media’s cohost) is even here to give his expert perspective. The room is noisy; the beer is flowing; the pizza’s not bad. There is the occasional whoop at any of the many interceptions. There are no whoops at the commercials (since they’ve all been castrated by the PTC et al: the tapiocization of American media and culture).
Once, just once, silence conquers the room: When the GoDaddy.com commercial plays with its mockery of the prigs and prudes of Congress and the FCC… and one big, overstretched, uh, brand.
Sex sells. Doh!
: I’ll admit it: I had to ask which ones were the guys in green. I am a shame to my gender.
: Garfield’s reviews are in the new issue of AdAge (which is not online, damn them). He gives 3.5 stars to GoDaddy.com, along with Visa’s superhero commercial and a few others. He gives one star (generous) to the big-huh MBNA Gladys Knight ad.
: I’m delighted and relieved that the Fox guys doing the halftime wrapup talk just as fast as I do.
: It’s so damned sad that a Beatle is now a symbol of safety.
Damn, I’m old.
This is your grandfather’s Super Bowl.