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American Morning
Who Took the Coveted Title of Best Super Bowl Commercial?
Aired February 04, 2002 - 09:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: This morning the New England Patriots are of course the champions of the football world. But who took the coveted title of best Super Bowl commercial? According to one group of armchair quarterbacks voting for "USA Today," this Bud was for them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Honey, I've got the black teddy on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, OK.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I put the satin sheets on the bed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes. Be up in a minute.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've got cold Bud Light.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ouch.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Honey?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Joining us now with more on the best and worst Super Bowl spots, "USA Today" reporter Mike McCarthy. Thanks very much for being with us.
MIKE MCCARTHY, "USA TODAY" REPORTER: Good morning.
COOPER: That commercial we just showed ranked number one in viewers you surveyed, and amazing out of the top five your viewers selected, four of them were by Anheuser-Busch. Which were the top five?
MCCARTHY: That's right, Anheuser-Busch had the top three spots and four of the top five. All of them were Bud Light spots. All of them were humorous, funny commercials, during a year when many people thought the advertising would be more serious.
COOPER: Out of something like 56 commercials that aired last night, the vast majority of them, or the majority of them were comedic. MCCARTHY: That's absolutely. Right. The comedy bowl. They told us that they wanted an escape after what the country has been through the last couple of months. They wanted to laugh and let their hair down and have a good time, and they did.
COOPER: Let's take a look at the second top rated spot, the Anheuser-Busch "pet falcon" spot. We are going to run that now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wow, that is so cool.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can he do it, again?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure.
Go get one, boy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. So where does he get them?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get down!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For The great taste that won't fill you up and never let you down, make it a Bud Light.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: What do the ads do right?
MCCARTHY: That is a simple idea, just well executed. What we saw last night is Anheuser-Busch doing very funny, simple messages, and doing them very well. You saw other advertisers trying trick plays, and they were just fumbling, throwing incompletions all over the world. The casting in that ad is great. the maitre'd has probably the best scream since Chekov in "Star Trek."
COOPER: Also a lot of serious ads, a Monster ad. But probably the most talked about was again the Anheuser-Busch ad with the Clydesdale horses bowing in respect to ground zero at the World Trade Center. With a serious ad like that, what does a company get out of it.
We're showing the spot right now.
How does a company benefit from an ad like this?
MCCARTHY: I think it's a pure corporate image ad. Budweiser and Anheuser-Busch are an American company, and they basically want to pay tribute to the 9-11 victims. But it's a very tricky thing. I think advertisers very much on the fence between doing an ad that's right and that has the right message, and doing an ad as playing patriot games with consumers. COOPER: Levis ran an ad which was a very different ad. It was directed by Spike Jones. Was it effective?
MCCARTHY: It was very effective. Finished in our top ten. It was a terrific spot. Uses digital effects to mix this dancer. By the way, it's part of the trend of consumer becoming involved in picking their own Super Bowl collusions.
COOPER: This is pretty much -- this is shot -- this the photographed in Mexico City and it's simple digital effect, really.
MCCARTHY: They had the dancer walk the same way twice. Those are really legs moving, and then mixed the shot of him walking straight with his upper body together to get the ad. It's a terrific ad.
COOPER: And directed by Spike Jones. Now the big loser of the night. Pepsi spent like $5.6 million or something on the 90-second Britney Spears spot.
MCCARTHY: Right, Pepsi had the longest commercial on the game and actually finished in the bottom five of the ad meter poll. The Britney Spears spot just fell flat. Consumers thought it went on too long, it was too complicated. It didn't have much of a payoff.
COOPER: Is there a danger in an ad like this where so much of the focus is on the star that the product gets lost?
MCCARTHY: I think there is a little bit of danger in the ad. But I don't know if the product getting lost here, it's Britney. The spot seemed to come alive at the end, when we see Britney as the entertainer we know. But I'm not sure that Britney in the '50s, as Sandra Dee (ph), or the hippy-dippy Britney really worked.
COOPER: And then there was a second spot also, Britney Spears for Pepsi, a 30-second spot, that didn't rank well, either.
MCCARTHY: That didn't rank well either. And again, it was another opportunity for consumers to pick their own ad. Pepsi put three ads up on their Web site, and they let consumers choose own Super Bowl spot.
COOPER: Overall, do these ads translate into sales?
MCCARTHY: I think they do. Super Bowl is the big stage, and it's a place to really establish your image with American consumers, and it's not just consumers who are the audience. Sometimes it's employees, suppliers and partners.
COOPER: How are ad prices this year compared to last year?
MCCARTHY: The struggling economy impacted Super Bowl, along with everything else. Ad prices were down 10 percent, to just shy of $2 million.
COOPER: All right, thanks very much for coming. Interesting as always.
MCCARTHY: Thank you.
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