Getting 30 Seconds Worth Of Art For Your $3 Million

February 2, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Perfect Commercials 

If you missed the most important moment in last night’s Super Bowl —and I’m not referring to anything involving James Harrison or Santonio Holmes or to Fr. Taylor’s highlight— here’s a chance to catch up with all the show’s commercials.  You can choose your own favorite/perfect example of the art from the Superbowl commerical smorgasbord offered by hulu.

The price tag for a 30-second spot was about $3 million — and that was just for the time.  But production costs are correspondingly high and these few hours are  the premier showcase for the art of the commercial.

For sheer creativity and scale, my favorite Super Bowl commercial was Coke Floats.  In spite of  the shameless product placement (it’s some consolation that at least a third of the dough will be going to Seth MacFarlane — as if he needs it), its hard not to love a situation in which Charlie Brown beats both Stewie Griffin and Super Dog.

The lowest moment was unquestionably Pepsi’s “Anthem” commercial that involved the king himself in an instance of lese majeste.  With all due respect to will.i.am’s formidable talents, he isn’t fit to touch the hem of any garment Bob Dylan wore between 1962 and at least the mid 1980s.  The notion that he is the generational successor is dumb; the notion that he is the generational incarnation is dumber. Mr. Dylan, alas, seems bent on selling his heritage for a mess of pottage. And this wasn’t his first time at this particular fair.  

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