All That Attention Makes Super Bowl Ads Suck

You already know what you’re going to see during breaks in the Super Bowl action on Sunday: talking animals, talking babies, and crotch shots. Why? Because you, the public, demand it, says Tom Denari of Advertising Age. Now that sites allow viewers to rate Super Bowl ads, advertisers believe they have a statistically valid measure of what America “likes,” and what it likes is, well, animals, babies, and crotch shots.

“Super Bowl ads are now dangerously close to a series of Saturday Night Live skits, designed to bombastically amuse the viewer,” Denari grumbles. They’ve “become a contest where each competitor sees who can out-gross, out-animal-talk or out-uncomfortable-body-part the next ad.” Advertisers need to forget the ratings and craft cliché-free ads that’ll work after the game—when no one’s glued to the set just to see the commercials. (More Super Bowl ads stories.)