If I don’t watch The Game I miss the ads. Actually, I tune into the yearly show “Super Bowl’s Greatest Commercials,” aired a week before the game, to see what I missed. The ads are funny, sexy, thought-provoking, timely, expensive, and disturbingly violent.
It’s the attitude that “violence sells” that bothers me. So many ads feature people getting hurt or hurting someone else on purpose–designed to make us laugh. I don’t happen to think that’s funny.
This year’s Greatest Top 10 Ads of All Time were encouraging, though. Yes, there were the Three Stooges type humor in some. However, here were the top four: #4 Bridgestone tires (saving a whale), #3 Victoria’s Secret (suggestive but not overboard–for them), #2 Coke (Mean Joe Green–kid teaching adult a lesson in humility and generosity), and #1 Budweiser (horse/dog friendship and cooperation leads to success).
I have no idea what Sunday will bring between bouts of grown men fighting over a bit of pigskin. As for me, I’ll spend the day looking for Bridgestone tire sales, slyly placing the Victoria’ Secret weekly ad near my husband’s chair, drinking a bunch of Cokes, then topping it off with a Bud or two. The game? Oh, yeah, that. Maybe I’ll catch the half-time show.
