The Egotist Network's Super Bowl Roundup

With a nail-biter fourth quarter, a Madonna half time show and the occasional close up of Giselle's skybox, this year's Super Bowl was tolerable. The ads, on the other hand, were a whole different story. Of the 62 spots that ran – only a few offered glimmers of hope. More than a few were terribly painful. And most of them were just plain boring.

With color commentary compiled from across the Egotist Network, here's what we had to say about last night's spots worth talking about.

FIAT 500 ABARTH - SEDUCTION

DENVER: Surprised no one's ever used a beautiful woman as a metaphor for a beautiful car before. Only letdown on this one for us, was that the car isn't beautiful.

ALBERTA: No Jenny From the Block controversy just a sexy women and cream selling cars. Not so subtle and so european.

MINNEAPOLIS: Hot. They could have been more subtle with the tattoo, but the reveal made it all worth it. One question: What was she actually saying?

SF: One of our favorites. It had a great premise that kept you watching (not to mention a hot woman) and a great twist at the end. Bravo.

TORONTO: We highlighted this one back in November. So to the ad exec who listened to us, you can get that cheque ready.

MINNEAPOLIS: Cheque.

BUDWEISER - FLASH FANS

ALBERTA: Will make any grown Canadian man cry. The best concepted commercial of the Super Bowl.

TORONTO: That cold wind from the north was 4 million Canadian men getting the
chills. Brilliant.

DAVID BECKHAM for H&M

SF: No concept. Not interesting. Nothing even remotely original. And yet every woman at our party stopped what they were doing to watch and they all talked through the next 2 spots about it. So… success?

DES MOINES: While we rolled our eyes the ladies in the room swooned. This spot took balls to make because it instantly alienated half the audience. It's not like we wouldn't wear 'em if someone sl ipped these in our drawers.

ALBERTA: OK the guys had GoDaddy and Fiat. Here's one for the ladies. Abs, underwear and old wrinkly overpaid Beckham. Overall pretty weak for such a big spot, Calvin was doing that 20 years ago..

MINNEAPOLIS: Complete and total waste of 30 Super seconds.

CHEVY SILVERADO APOCOLYPSE

DC: The end of the world, brought to you by Chevy (which coincidentally, co-sponsored the near-end of the world as far as American business is concerned). Gorgeously shot and acted; it’s dry and epic, like having a martini with Ben Hur.

ALBERTA: Little known fact, the Mayan’s invented yellow cake with a cream filling. They also hated raining frog’s.‬ Big budget and big production makes for a great Super Bowl ad.

SF: Now THIS is a Super Bowl spot. Big budget. Big idea. Funny. And full of a ton of great little touches that make you want to go back to YouTube and watch it again.

TORONTO: A truck ad that shoots an arrow throught the truck-man’s heart.

BEST BUY

MINNEAPOLIS: At least this year was Bieberless.

ALBERTA: Say again? Who are these people? There's a concept but poorly executed and left emotionless.

AUDI VAMPIRE PARTY

SF: Well conceived. Funny. Great use of the vampire pop culture fanaticism that’s happening right now. We loved this one.

TORONTO: Do headlights sell cars? Do vampires have any cool factor post-Stephanie Meyer? Could this ad not have ended after the first poof? Will anyone ever tweet #NoMoreVampires? This ad suuuucks.

DENVER: Bright headlights is an odd feature to push to try and get people to buy an expensive car, but the car looked good and the spot tapped into a pop culture phenomenon that needs to go away now. Win.

MINNEAPOLIS: Can this be the vampire's last stand? Please? Over it.

ALBERTA: I am thinking the creative brief for this one read, "Need Vampires." Then worked backwards from there.

HONDA + BRODERICK

DC: We grew up during the 80s. And we’re not ashamed that this spot – clearly pandering to Gen-Xers – was an instant hit with our staff. Chockfull of gags from the movie, it does a swell job capturing the film’s spirit without exorcising it. Sure, the product itself is vanilla extract in SUV form, but the ad has us wanting one anyway.

ALBERTA: True Ferris Bueller fans will get all the similarities to the movie. It will be water cooler talk tomorrow for the nostalgic 40 somethings.

SF: For a spot that was so anticipated and so covered in the press, this spot was so soulless. You could almost see the giant check reflecting in Matthew Broderick’s glassed-over eyes during his mail-it-in performance.

TORONTO: Maybe next year Honda could have dogs barking the ‘Oh Yeah’ song. Meh.

MINNEAPOLIS: This one pulled all right nostalgia levers for us. He's old as shit, but it worked. Nice spot.

ACURA + SEINFELD

DC: Seinfeld goes to great pains to nab a sports car. Even if it means resuscitating the cultural relevance of the Soup Nazi to do it. Entertaining… even if no one remembers which car they’re advertising.

ALBERTA: Probably the best performance of Seinfeld since, well Seinfeld.

SF: We’re not big Seinfeld fans, but this was funny(ish) and well done. It certainly made us drool over the car. Bonus points for making Leno look like a dick.

MINNEAPOLIS: The Seinfeldian humor was captured well. The car looked amazing. And one more thing – wouldn't it be nice if that Geiko screaming pig zip line spot looked even half as real as the zip line scene in this spot?

BUDWEISER PROHIBITION

DC: Dear, Budweiser. You’re welcome. Love, Boardwalk Empire.

ALBERTA: Pure theatrics and totally fits for a Super Bowl ad but, the story is told very similar to a movie trailer and leaves us unsatisfied. Would of been nice for an extended version

KIA SANDMAN

DC: Love the tone of this one. It would’ve been so easy to play this spot gently. The idea that an Optima is what someone dream’s about whilst overdosing on Mr. Sandman’s Magic Dust is ripe. And well aligned with the brand we imagine they’re trying to project.

SF: Another true Super Bowl spot – where the creatives had the budget to do anything they wanted, and they used it to the full effect.

TOYOTA "CAMRY EFFECT"

ALBERTA: Saatchi & Saatchi LA took a basic run of the mill car and made it super fun.

SF: Eh. Not bad. Not great. This is one of those that will score high in the post-Super Bowl consumer surveys but won't actually do anything to sell Camrys because it wastes :50 of a :60 before it decides to actually sell something.

MINNEAPOLIS: One of the few spots that struck a softer, more sentimental chord with our party. The room went from laughing and talking to somber and thoughtful, then ended with a small, "that was nice" from the back. We agree. It's nice. But does it make us want to run to the dealership for a 2013 mom car? Nope.

DC: If you’re going to pluck the much-played “reinvented/redefined” cord, your spot better have a baby time machine and a DMV that hands out soft-serve ice cream. Nicely done.

CHRYSLER + CLINT EASTWOOD

MINNEAPOLIS: We're big fans of the Chrysler campaign and this spot didn't disappoint. Eastwood? Come on. Pretty bad ass. Interesting though, the car with which he's most associated is probably the FORD Gran Torino...

ALBERTA: Chrysler went to political with this one. Pulling the heart strings of a struggling American economy. Is this a rally to over-finance hurting unemployed Americans? The mood is really depressing.

HYUNDAI GENESIS

DENVER: Simple demo of how fast the Hyundai can accelerate and stop. Common theme for us this year: ads that show a clear benefit of the product, not just entertain.

SF: And when Hyundai isn’t making borrowed interest spots or being completely cheesy, they’re doing inane, boring crap based on trite, clichés.

MINNEAPOLIS: We admit. It held our attention – even though we know what was coming, we wanted to see him jolt back to life. (Or, heimlich his Hubba Bubba through the windshield.)

DORITOS SLING BABY

SF: As is usually the case, the general public will LOVE these. People will be laughing about them by the water cooler as you read this. But every single one of these spots is an abomination. That’s not our opinion. It’s a fact.

MINNEAPOLIS: Terrible.

VOLKSWAGEN - THE DOG STRIKES BACK

SF: The dog spot by itself is cute and if that was all VW had decided to run for their Super Bowl it would have been a crowd favorite. But then they mucked it up with a ridiculous and unnecessary nod to last year's "Little Vader" spot that 95% of the public won't really remember and won't make the connection. Horrible.

TORONTO: Wait, so we hate Lucas for destroying Star Wars, but we tolerate—nay, celebrate this? Shame.

CHEVY - HAPPY GRAD

DENVER: Humor was in short supply this year for some reason. And this is one of the only spots that made us chuckle out loud. It was user generated by a 26-year-old, if you can believe it.

DC: This one’s our guilty pleasure spot. The casting’s genius, featuring a grad who could very well be the love child of Chris Farley and David Spade. Interestingly, insert a Bud Light truck in place of the Camaro, and the spot would play about the same.

ALBERTA: Awesome performance, super funny writing. Status update!

SF: For a consumer generated spot, this is actually pretty good. A little over-acted, but it made people at our party laugh.

TORONTO: A predictable premise, but an execution that is just clever enough to make every one of our Super Bowl Party attendees laugh out-loud. That’s a win.

eTRADE BABY

SF: When the creative team brought this idea to the creative director, he should have fired them on the spot. Or maybe lit them on fire on the spot.

ALBERTA: ‪”Worst of show”‬ ‪Drum roll…E*Trade and that creepy talking baby. Stop creeping me out creepy baby.

GO DADDY .CO

YouTube user "NordicDiamond": What the fuck is this shit.