Homo Viator

Girls and Europeans only tend to watch the Super Bowl for its creative ads. Considering that 30 seconds airtime already cost $2.5 Million ($83.000 per second), companies do not save on production costs either. Frito Lay (Doritos) however, jumped on the bandwagon of consumer generated content and smartly unloaded the pressures of creating a memorable Super Bowl ad to the user.
And of course there were lots of focus groups, pre-testings and impact measurements. Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles scanned the brains of five men and five women between the ages of 18 and 34 as they watched Super Bowl ads to measure the emotional impact. “Each area of the brain has specific functions. Some areas generate emotions, like hope, trust or fear, while others process information. When an area of the brain becomes active, the vascular systems shunts additional blood to that area and the fMRI measures the increase.” Among the top anxiety-producing ads, was one for General Motors aimed at drawing attention to the automaker's 100,000 mile warranty? (See below) According to the university "that one got people's attention. But they did not feel good about the message. It produced big spikes of anxiety and perhaps ... feelings of economic insecurity.” The commercials that produced the most positive feelings were those by Coke and Doritos.
But I think everyone would agree that compared to other years this year’s Super Bowl ads were rather lame.

My favorite Super Bowl XLI ad



The GM anxiety producing ad



Dorito´s user-produced ads



Kevin Federline´s piss take of himself...

....and Britney. "Life comes at you fast" and "guaranteed income for life." That is just great.



Snickers ad: Nothing for Homophobics