Bowl ads get amateurs in act
Campy humor and attempts to drive viewers to the Web are back
By Seth Sutel
of The Associated Press

NEW YORK — There’s one place where you can find both FedEx, the overnight package delivery service, and “Fed-Ex,” or Kevin Federline, the future ex-husband of pop diva Britney Spears. Both will be making appearances in Super Bowl ads, the highest-profile advertising event of the year.

FedEx Corp. is keeping mum about what its ad will look like, keeping up a tradition of ultra-secrecy that many marketers follow in hopes of building up the maximum amount of surprise during the game, which airs at 6 p.m. Sunday on CBS. Advertisers want to get the most out of the huge cost of an ad in the big game, which is running as high as $2.6 million this year, up slightly from $2.5 million last year.

Federline will be poking fun at himself in a humorous spot for the Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. under its “Life Comes At You Fast” campaign. Those spots, which have previously featured the supermodel Fabio and MC Hammer, will show Federline winding up working in a fast-food restaurant.

Humor and attempts to drive viewers to the Web, two themes from past years, are back again with some variations, and this year’s Super Bowl commercials add a new twist — viewer participation.

One of the biggest new themes of this year’s game is getting amateurs into the act. General Motors Corp.’s Chevrolet division ran a contest for college students to propose an ad that would be made by a team of professionals, and PepsiCo Inc.’s Frito-Lay unit will run an ad made entirely by an amateur contestant.

The finalists for the GM contest include a team containing Fort Wayne’s Shlomo Goltz, 22, a visual communications major at Washington University in St. Louis. (See story, Page 1A.)

Meanwhile, Bayer Corp.’s Alka-Seltzer has a spot in the pre-game broadcast featuring the winner of a contest to come up with an updated version of its “plop-plop, fizz-fizz” jingle. The winner was Josh Anderson, a DJ at a radio station in Greensboro, N.C. The NFL also made an ad from an idea generated by a fan contest.

Many of the other spots made available for preview ahead of the big game show a decided shift to lighthearted, sometimes campy humor. That’s in contrast with a number of ads last year that highlighted oddball violence, such as a female player in a touch football game getting clobbered with an illegal tackle.

Garmin International Inc., a first-time Super Bowl advertiser, is planning a campy spot inspired by 1960s Japanese monster movies with a showdown between an evil “Maposaurus” and a hero who uses a Garmin-made electronic navigation device to save the day. This being the Internet age, there is, naturally, an accompanying blog: garmin.blogs.com.

Among returning advertisers, Diamond Foods Inc.’s Emerald Nuts brand came up with new ads after innovative spots last year that turned the company’s name into an acrostic-like word puzzle. Emerald is hoping to generate even more interest in its ad, which features the actor Robert Goulet, by posting video clips on the video-sharing site YouTube.com. They feature humorous “victim testimonials” from people who didn’t have Emerald Nuts handy at that key time late in the day when many people run low on energy.

Other big advertisers are also returning, including Anheuser-Busch Co.’s Budweiser and Bud Light brands, which are once again the game’s biggest advertisers. In Anheuser-Busch’s hitchhiker spot, spooky music cues as a couple drives down a dark road. Fumbling with a map, a woman is alarmed when her boyfriend slows down to pick up a hitchhiker, pointing out that he is carrying an ax.

“But he has Bud Light,” pleads the boyfriend.

“And an ax!” she insists.

In another new spot, racing champion Dale Earnhardt Jr. appears in a wild apocalyptic scene being chased by deranged characters straight out a “Mad Max” movie. Another features rapper Jay-Z and former Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula facing off over a chess-like rendering of a high-tech football game using holographic images.

And what would Budweiser Super Bowl ads be without some animated critters? This year, a gang of mischievous red crabs turns up on a beach to carry off a cooler full of beers. As in past years, Bud is keeping the punch lines a secret until game day. Some other ads include:

♦YUM Brands Inc.’s Pizza Hut is coming back with another spot featuring singer Jessica Simpson.

♦Mars Inc. will have a spot for its Snickers bar set in an auto garage.

♦Coca-Cola Co. is back in the game with three spots, having had a spot in the pre-game last year for an energy drink. Two of the spots have already aired, and the company is keeping the third one secret, a pokeswoman said.
See the ads

What: Super Bowl XLI coverage kicks off at 6 p.m. Sunday on CBS.

More Super Bowl stuff

♦Will Fort Wayne resident Shlomo Goltz’s team’s commercial air during the Super Bowl? See Page 1A.

♦To check out team video, memorable game moments, trivia and more, go to www.news-sentinel.com, and click on the Super Bowl XLI icon.