Be A Design Cast XXVII : Superbowl Spectacular II
by Nate Voss, (6 comments)
The return of Tom Nemitz! Steve Gordon! Donovan! Nate! And the worst superbowl ads we’ve seen in a decade. Seriously, what went wrong there? We spend a bit longer show than usual pondering those issues and more. And we welcome two new friends to the show, New Guy Rob Maguire and New Girl Ashley McFeely. And sound-o-files rejoice! Renaissance-man Steve MF’ing Gordon fixed our echoing issue from last episode. Welcome to awesometown, Steve. Population you.
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Comments (6)
Steve G. said:
Good show guys… it was a lot of fun. Thanks for having me and Rick James and Charlie Murphy on again. ;o)
Posted on February 7, 2007
Adrian Hanft said:
The real reason the Super Bowl Ads sucked:
Why pay multi-million dollars to get people to watch an amazing commercial? Put it on YouTube for free and let it sink or swim. No risk, no hype, and most importantly, no tricking your audience into watching an ad. If you can make something amazing people will go out of their way to find it. Maybe people are starting to realize this and not wasting their money on advertising on the SuperBowl. Result: the Super Bowl ads sucked.
Posted on February 7, 2007
Steve G. said:
Exactly. Good call Adrian.
Like I said, you can’t pull the wool anymore. The people are not the end user anymore, they are dead-center, involved in the process. Add to that the global reach and storable, repeatable, categorizable media and outlets… Advertising as we knew it vanished almost like it hadn’t even been there!
While we used to worry about the future bringing about Big Brother a la “1984”… Big Brother is now worried about the future bringing about us… the informed, empowered and fully functioning public. The common users of information have now become the main controllers of information.
Sorry for the tangent… the post just got me to thinking.
Posted on February 7, 2007
Scott said:
Great show guys, love the crew and the different personalities. However, I have to point out the continuing trend of really poor quality! I love the ‘cast, but sometimes I can’t stand the audio quality. I recommend you get a Plantronics DSP400 headset - it runs on USB and costs about $40 on amazon.
Posted on February 8, 2007
Nate Voss said:
Yeah, we ironed out our echo and were left with some pretty unfortunate pops and scratches. Our commitment to sound quality is neverending, and we’re constantly looking for ways to improve it. I will check out this headset mic you’ve pointed out, Scott. Looks quite rad.
Posted on February 8, 2007
Lena said:
Hey guys….I love your podcast. It’s definitely worth listening through audio technical difficulties, at least for me. Thanks for being awesome.
I was kind of surprised that you didn’t talk more about the GM commercial (manufacturing robot gets fired for making a mistake on the assembly line) in this year’s superbowl spectacular because that ad sticks out in my mind as one that missed the mark in a bunch of different ways.
Here’s a link to it in case anyone needs to refresh their memory: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ax2ZzboV05M
Every immediate reaction I had to this ad was a negative brand association. The first thing that came to mind was: oh yeah….GM has massive layoffs all the time. This was followed by….hey…this poor robot is pretty cute. The way they anthropomorphized him really makes me feel pretty sad, and it’s surprising that he still seems to have an emotional attachment to the cars despite recent circumstances. So while I’m waiting for a happy resolution for this newly humanized machine…he commits suicide. What?!
Now I should note that I missed the 1 second moment in the ad where the robot had made a mistake when I was actually watching it the first time due to a beer-related lapse in attention, so I completely missed the point they were trying to make about product quality until I went back to watch it again, but lets face it, most people watching the game aren’t nearly as riveted by advertisements like members of the design community are, so I would be surprised if I was the only person who missed this important detail. I do think that I’m in an extreme minority of folks who actually sought out the ad for another viewing, however.
Even after a more observant viewing, I’m still left feeling pretty sorry for the robot, and for every UAW member who has been fired or laid off by GM. It sort of personalizes the experience that any one of these workers must go through when facing similar, but, in fact, less controllable circumstances. After all, layoffs in this industry often involve a total plant shutdown, and may not involve a mistake on the job. In addition….robots usually don’t have familial obligations…at least not yet. :)
So basically, GM’s ad made me think of people killing themselves after losing their jobs. How very Depression-Era of them.
Posted on February 9, 2007