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.

True-blue football fans
Cold doesn’t keep Colts, Bears fans from event
By Kathleen Quilligan
kquilligan@news-sentinel.com

Wearing a green sweat shirt and jeans, at first glance Fort Wayne resident Gabriel Parrish didn’t look much like a Colts fan.

Then he turned around.

Three hours before Friday’s Super Bowl rally at the City-County Building started downtown, Parrish called 20 barbershops until he found one that would agree to shave his head, leaving only a Colts symbol horseshoe of hair on the back of his head.

“It’s OK because the Colts are going to the Super Bowl,” Ashley Parrish, his wife, said. “But it’s not something that can happen all the time.”

The Parrishes were two of a few hundred people who turned out for Friday’s rally sponsored by the city and county, braving the wind and cold to support two Midwest teams in pro football’s biggest game.

While Colts fans outnumbered Bears fans at least three to one, fans of both teams shivered under their jerseys, wrapping themselves in blankets with their teams’ logos as they waved signs.

The Colts hat 5-year-old Kade Keele was wearing blew off his head but was saved by his father’s co-worker, Mike Johnson, who was decked out head to toe in Bears apparel.

“I can’t believe I saved a Colts hat,” he muttered, shaking his head.

Kevin Robie, vice president of sales for Excellent Adventure in Fort Wayne, brought two of his company’s charter buses to the rally to give fans a place to thaw and use the restroom. One bus was reserved for Colts fans and the other for Bears fans.

The separation might have been a good idea because out on the plaza of the City-County Building, Colts fans tried to drown out the cheers of Bears fans.

“I’m here to trash-talk. We’re going to stomp the Colts. I’ve got my stomping boots on,” said Bears fan Michael Banks, holding up one foot covered in a rubber boot with the Bears logo on it.

Banks laughed as his half brother Reggie Allen approached. Allen is a Colts fan and both have their own ideas about who will win Sunday.

“40-19, Colts,” Allen said.

“37-14, Bears,” Banks countered.

Mayor Graham Richard proclaimed Friday Colts Day in the city and then proclaimed it Bears Day. Allen County Commissioner Nelson Peters announced Fort Wayne as the honorary location of Super Bowl XLI.

The biggest question on fans’ minds, besides who will win Sunday, is whether Fort Wayne will host another rally for next year’s Super Bowl.

“If those two teams make it again next year, we’ll do it again,” said Denise Porter-Ross the Northeast area advocate in the mayor’s office and organizer of the rally.

Kickoff: Colts vs. Bears, 6 p.m. (approximate) Sunday in Miami

Radio: WOWO, 1190-AM; WKJG, 1380-AM

Churches recruit fans on Super Sunday
AP Video: NFL nixes churches' plans for big-screen parties

By MATT SEDENSKY
Associated Press

MIAMI - Football's faithful will file into house parties, bars and, of course, Dolphin Stadium on Super Bowl Sunday to observe their holiest of holy days. But they'll also turn out in force at churches across the country, which are tapping the popularity of sports in hopes of saving souls.

Organizers of church-sponsored Super Bowl gatherings see the events as a departure from the formality of organized religion - the type of events that could make someone who doesn't typically attend services feel more at home.

"It's a way of reaching out into our community in a very informal, low-key way where we show people we're regular Joes like they are without the pressure of church," said Pastor Luis Acosta of Pines Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist congregation north of Miami in Pembroke Pines.

Pines Baptist has been holding Super Bowl events for a few years and expects about 300 people, mostly men, at its flag football game and watch party this year. The church drew about 250 people to a block party Jan. 13 which featured NFL-themed games, former Dolphins players signing autographs and giveaways including a plasma television.

Acosta said the church doesn't take a heavy-handed approach to nonbelievers who join in such events. There won't be so much as a prayer at the Super Bowl Sunday event. If a guest enjoys himself, a member might invite him to a church social group meeting, then maybe a Bible study, then perhaps an actual service.

"We just follow God's lead," Acosta said.

Pastor Mike Pierce of the non-denominational Poplar Creek Church in the Chicago suburb of Bartlett, Ill., takes a similar approach. About 100 people will watch the game on the big screen in the sanctuary. Like other church events - including a carnival, a play and a pig roast - it's meant to simply create a friendly, fun environment, but not an overtly religious one.

"We don't turn everything into a spiritual event," Pierce said. "Good, clean fun is still spiritual."

Many pastors agree, simply trying to make their churches welcoming environments for new guests. Carrollwood Baptist Church in Tampa has been holding a Super Bowl gathering for more than 15 years and attendees have become so comfortable at the event that some bring recliners from home.

"I like it because it's very laid back," said Robert Smith, a 32-year-old Rockford, Ill., resident who has attended Super Bowl parties at Dominion Christian Center there. "There's no pressure."

Churches also are aware many people are unwilling to do anything other than watch the game on Super Bowl Sunday.

"We can offer a good event surrounding something the culture uses or we can just hold church and no one's going to come," said Jim Waters, an associate pastor and minister to students at First Baptist Church in Milton in the Florida Panhandle.

Like many other churches holding Super Bowl events, the Milton congregation will screen "Power to Win," a video featuring Christian NFL stars, during halftime.

Some churches are using the Super Bowl as an opportunity to reach the poor.

A number of Nashville churches will host the homeless, feeding them, washing their clothes, letting them watch the game on big-screen TVs and giving them a bed to sleep in on Super Bowl Sunday. And at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Libertyville, Ill., members will gather donations to help fund the parish food pantry, another one for the larger community, and a school under construction for African orphans.

William Baker, a retired University of Maine professor who has written two books about sports and religion, says the interplay between the two dates back to ancient times, and that in modern-day America, evangelical Christians make the most of the relationship. He calls sports part of the new "American trinity" - along with religion and patriotism.

"Any visitor from Mars on Super Sunday, whether he watches television or goes to the stadium in Miami," Baker said, "would say these people believe, maybe in God, but for sure they believe in the American flag and in the flyover military display and in patriotism, but most surely they believe in sports."

Marquee matchup: Manning vs. Urlacher
Road to Super Bowl XLI
Super Bowls do, once in a while, follow the story lines that are beaten to death during the days leading up to the game, but they also turn around fairly often and bite the prognosticators in the butt, writes Cam Cole. So will the matchup between Brian Urlacher and Peyton Manning live up to its billing?

"Super Bowls do, once in a while, follow the story lines that are beaten to death during the days leading up to the game, but they also turn around fairly often and bite the prognosticators in the butt," writes Cam Cole. So will the matchup between Brian Urlacher and Peyton Manning live up to its billing?
Photograph by : AP Photos



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Cam Cole, CanWest News Service
Published: Saturday, February 03, 2007

MIAMIBEACH - Welcome to Media 101.

Here is how we wrap up two weeks' worth of lukewarm verbiage in a neat little bow:

Since the Indianapolis Colts' best player is the quarterback, and the Chicago Bears' best player is the middle linebacker, Super Bowl XLI is bound to come down to a clash of titans between Peyton Manning and Brian Urlacher.

We'd give you some shades of gray to go along with that oversimplification, but it makes a better story if it's not too complicated because, as the Bears' much-mocked quarterback Rex Grossman noted Thursday, reporters are really kind of ill-informed, and fans aren't much better.

"It's frustrating when you don't put much thought into it," said Grossman, after the 7,000th question about his comparitive ineptitude, next to Colts' celebrated slinger, Manning. "You're just going off the fans' reaction. You just don't know much about what we're doing on offence. Just realizing how ... you know, you know ... ignorant some of you guys are."

Yikes.

Whatever happened to "Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel?"

He probably has a point, though.

Super Bowls do, once in a while, follow the story lines that are beaten to death during the days leading up to the game, but they also turn around fairly often and bite the prognosticators in the butt, which is how you get Hall of Famer Jim Kelly losing Super Bowls to Jeff Hostetler and Mark Rypien, and Doug Williams crushing John Elway, and the 17-point underdog New York Jets beating the invincible Baltimore Colts.

"I wouldn't be shocked at all," said Colts coach Tony Dungy, to the suggestion that the game could actually be decided by the Bears' offence versus the Colts' defence, even though the common wisdom is that it's got to be the other way around.

"You never know how it's going to go, and we're confident we can do well in any type of game - we played an all-field-goals game against Baltimore, and won it, and we had to get 30 points in the second half against New England, and won that one.

"But I think the other four units - both special teams and the Bears' offence and our defence - that's what's going to determine the game."

That may be just Dungy's way of taking pressure off Manning, though.

Let's face it: the eyes are drawn to marquee players - the TV eye, for sure - which makes it hard to look anywhere else. And they do get the credit, and the blame. And the money. So why shouldn't they decide the game?

The difficulty with Urlacher is that he is playing middle linebacker in Chicago, which immediately makes you think of Dick Butkus ripping opponents' heads off, or Mike Singletary's big-as-saucer eyes staring down the quarterback just before the snap, but Urlacher plays as much like a free safety as he does a run-stopper - and he doesn't blitz the quarterback much.

In fact, you have to look closely to see why this 6-foot-4 specimen, who's built like Goliath and runs like a gazelle, is so special. It's often not all that apparent.

"Brian Urlacher as an inside linebacker has it all," said Chicago head coach Lovie Smith. "He's one of the best superstars you'll ever have a chance to be around and you can't find anyone with more talent than him, 6-4, 255 pounds, six per cent body fat. He's a coach on the field. He is a perfect teammate.