Now that the big 2000 is here, one would think the lists would stop. Not a chance. The need to anthologize, categorize and analyze continues with the latest compendium screening at The Museum of Television & Radio (MT&R), New York, entitled Super Bowl: Super Showcase For Commercials. Running through February 13, the museum is featuring what it bills as "more than fifty memorable spots from Super Sundays."
But rather than the showcase being a symptom of the ubiquitous millennial roundup, MT&R television and advertising curator David Bushman and curatorial assistant Arthur Smith began creating this anthology in ’94. "We started with a base of spots that we saw as the most memorable. Each year the list changed, depending on what we added," explained Bushman.
Hosted by sports announcer and former football player Frank Gifford, the one-hour show chronicles the history of advertising on the Super Bowl, and how the sports program has become the premier showcase for advertisers.
According to Gifford, the media madness spawned out of two events. In ’69, the New York Jets upset the Baltimore (now Indianapolis) Colts, giving instant credibility to the American Football Conference and sending Super Bowl ad rates through the roof. Fifteen years later, Macintosh’s "1984," created by Chiat/Day, Los Angeles (now TBWA/Chiat/Day), aired on the ’84 Super Bowl and was quickly touted as one of the most acclaimed Super Bowl spots of all time. Directed by Ridley Scott via now defunct Fairbanks Films (Scott now directs spots via bicoastal RSA USA), "1984" set a new standard for Super Bowl advertising.
" ‘1984’ was the turning point in terms of creativity … it was the ultimate combination of creative and strategic brilliance," related Bushman. In the spot, which was set in the monochromatic world George Orwell described in his novel of the same title, Big Brother drones on about the anniversary of the "Unification Purification Directives." As the masses catatonically sit and stare at Big Brother’s looming face projected on a screen, a woman being pursued by the "thought police" hurls a sledgehammer at the
screen, causing it to explode. The automatons sit stunned by what has happened as the announcer states: "On January 24, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh-and you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ‘1984.’"
According to Bernice Kanner’s The 100 Best TV Commercials, Apple paid $500,000 for the :60 time slot. The spot was repeatedly shown on news programs and, in Kanner’s words, "was probably the most publicized event in advertising history."
Super Bowl spots have had their ups and downs, but one common denominator prevails: clients big and small pay megabucks for their :30/:60 of fame. In ’62, it cost $85,000 for one :60 spot to air during Super Bowl I. This year, advertisers are paying an estimated $2.5 million for a :30, while E*Trade paid a rumored $3.8 million to sponsor the Super Bowl XXXIV halftime show.
Among the Super Bowl series’ highlights is McDonald’s "Showdown," created by Leo Burnett Co., Chicago, which pitted former Chicago Bulls player Michael Jordan against former Boston Celtics star Larry Bird in a shooting contest to end all shooting contests. In the spot directed by Joe Pytka of Venice, Calif.-based PYTKA, Jordan and Bird challenge each other to complicated shot sequences, such as "Off the floor, off the scoreboard, off the backboard, no rim." In the last scene, the two rivals are sitting on top of the John Hancock Building in Boston, intending to shoot the ball "off the expressway, over the river, off the billboard, through the window, off the wall, nothin’ but net." "Showdown" first aired in the ’93 Super Bowl, and helped to popularize the phrase "Nothing but net."
The Super Bowl also made memorable those Budweiser frogs. In the ’95 Super Bowl, "Frogs" showed three animatronic frogs perched on rocks, each croaking a syllable in the word Budweiser. Directed by Gore Verbinski via Los Angeles-based Palomar Pictures (he is now with bicoastal 8Media), "Frogs" was the last spot St. Louis-based agency D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (now DMB&B) created for Budweiser, but Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco picked right up where DMB&B left off. For the next four years, the frog campaign became a Super Bowl advertising mainstay, and later added lizards and ferrets to the mix.
One of the more controverisal spots was Holiday Inn’s "Reunion," created by Fallon McElligott, Minneapolis. In it, a sexy woman turns heads as she saunters through her high school reunion. A voiceover gives a price valuation of all the woman’s bodily enhancements, including a nose job and breast implants. The woman finally comes face to face with a former classmate who claims he never forgets a face. With horror, he realizes he’s looking at someone who used to be Bob Johnson. The voiceover says, "It’s amazing, the changes you can make for a few thousand dollars. Imagine what Holiday Inn will look like when we spend a billion." "Reunion" aired only once during the ’97 Super Bowl, and people were so offended by its gender-bending content that it had to be pulled off the air. The spot was directed by Tony Scott via RSA USA.
Cola wars
Coca-Cola and Pepsi have often gone head-to-head in the Super Bowl ad spectacular. Perhaps the best example appeared on the Super Bowl in’95, with a Pytka-helmed Pepsi commercial entitled "Diner." A Pepsi delivery guy walks into a diner on a snowy night and sits at the counter and orders a Pepsi. He glances over and scowls at the only other person in the place, a Coke delivery guy. The Youngbloods’ "Get Together" starts playing on the jukebox. "Good song" says the Pepsi guy, breaking the silence. The Coke guy replies emphatically, "great song." Soon the two are sitting next to each other, laughing, and sharing pictures of their families when the unthinkable happens: the Pepsi man offers his can of Pepsi to his newfound Coke companion. The Coke man has a look around and sips the forbidden drink, while the Pepsi guy takes a swig off the Coke. The two laugh at the irony of it all and for a brief moment, everything is harmonious in the world-until the Coke man refuses to give the Pepsi guy his can back, which starts a brawl between the two.
In ’89, USA Today introduced a viewers’ poll which asked people to rate the Super Bowl commercials. Included in the MT&R anthology are those that fared best in the poll. Budweiser’s "Separated at Birth" (’99), via DDB Needham (now DDB), Chicago; Cracker Jack’s "Really Big Bag" (’99) out of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco; McIlhenny Co. Tabasco Sauces’ "Mosquito" (’98), created by DDB Needham (now DDB), Dallas; four Pepsi spots-"Boy in a Bottle" (’95), "Stranded" (’95), "Summer of Love" (’94) and "Chimps" (’94)-all via BBDO New York; Budweiser’s "Louie the Lizard" (’98), out of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco; Lipton Brisk’s "The Babe" (’98), via J. Walter Thompson, New York; McDonald’s "Perfect Season" (’92), via Leo Burnett Co., Chicago; and Bud Light’s "Dog Show" (’95) out of DMB&B, St. Louis, all appeared as favorites.
While the showcase featured only two dot-com ads-Monster.com’s "When I Grow Up" out of Mullen, Wenham, Mass., and Hotjobs.com’s "Security," via McCann-Erickson Detroit, Troy, Mich., Bushman anticipated having to make "significant changes" next year to reflect the current dot-com craze.
