Super Bowl Commercials 2011: Video And Commentary On Sunday’s Ads

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The best Super Bowl commercial of 2011 by most accounts — including our own — was Volkswagen’s mini Darth Vader ad, which featured a young boy attempting to use the force on various objects around the house. Here’s the video of it:

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Our own Spencer Hall summed it up nicely: “If your Super Bowl 2011 commercial leaves the lingering taste of “maimed baby” in my mouth, can I gently suggest you’ve just swindled your client out of money and harmed their brand simultaneously?”

T-5. Pepsi Max. All of them.

Our Coca-Cola-loving brethren at SB Nation Atlanta pilloried these last night for their utter inability to measure up to the well-received Coke Dragon ad. All we have to add is this: Before yesterday, we had no idea what Pepsi Max was. Today, we have no idea what Pepsi Max is, but the idea vaguely repulses us. Excellent work, sirs.

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The Volkswagen corporation had a pretty good day on Sunday. They had what many are calling the day’s best ad in “The Force” and an excellent secondary ad for the 2011 Beetle.

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The Super Bowl ad-war is about generating buzz and building a brand. In that regard, it’s easy to figure out which commercials were successful in accomplishing the goal when the dust from Super Bowl XLV settled. A simple look at Google, and what the masses were searching for, showed the clear winner was the Chrysler 200 and its impressive commercial centered around Detroit and rapper Eminem.

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Another automobile commercial during the Super Bowl, but with the ante raised a bit -- Mercedes brought out the voice of Janis Joplin singing her classic song, “Mercedes Benz,” to narrate all the Mercedes of the nation escaping their garages and car ports (a nice touch) to head to a huge warehouse-like dealership.

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Bud Light’s 2011 Super Bowl commercial campaign looks so much better than previous years, but remember: like your math scores the time you moved to a terrible school district, it’s not because they’ve improved, but because the standards have come down so very far.

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Eminem has now appeared in his second Super Bowl commercial of 2011. He starred in an ad which pitched both Chrysler and the city of Detroit, and the result, in my opinion, was the best commercial of Super Bowl XLV to date. Here’s video. Judge for yourself:

As for what’s going on in the ad? I have no clue.

There’s some muttering by Ozzy, and presumably your parents pay attention to that guy who used to have a reality series, and then some more Justin Bieber on the screen, and I’m not really sure what this commercial is really about until the very end when they have to flash “BEST BUY” on the screen just to let you know exactly what they’re pitching for whom here. And then, almost as a footnote, they slap Bieber on there because they know that no matter how bad and aimless an ad you make, Justin Bieber can make it all better.

E*Trade, despite its claim, is not in the business of web-based stock trading. It is firmly planted in the “make television audiences uncomfortable” industry. Their Super Bowl commercial demonstrated that they’re not content with resting on their “talking baby” laurels. No, no, no. It is time... for RACIST TALKING BABY! Here’s video:

Enzo probably does not appreciate the accent mocked at his expense. Make no mistake, y’all: mimicking a stereotypical accent is racist. Bummer, right? At least the talking baby isn’t terribly creepy like it always is, right?

I’d really like to recap every single one of the eighteen or so movie commercials being aired during the 2011 Super Bowl, but there are eighteen of them being advertised, and eighteen is a huge number of videos. So in order to consolidate them by category and number, let’s just put them on a quadrant graph by trait and let you pick the ones you like.

Obviously we had to fudge a few of these to fit into tidy categories. Drive Angry is under “talking animals” because really, isn’t Nicolas Cage classifiable as a talking animal now? Calling him human just doesn’t do him justice anymore, and I mean that in the best possible way. Ditto for “The Eagle,” because Channing Tatum and his movies fall into the “talking animal” category, too.

Roseanne isn’t irrelevant, because we love her too damned much. We don’t love her so much, though, that we don’t want to see her leveled by a giant log. Snickers knew this, and the good people at Mars made it happen in their Super Bowl commercial. Richard Lewis of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” fame also makes an appearance. Here’s video:

Here, Richard Lewis took a break from being a miserable, meandering middle-aged Los Angelan comic to bro out and eat candy bars with a gaggle of loggers. The highlight, though, was Roseanne Barr getting clobbered by a giant log. She sure doesn’t seem as though she would be a very good logger in real life.

No Super Bowl is complete without the commercials presumably targeted to your houseplants, i.e. The Bud Light/Doritos/PepsiMax Holy Trinity of Subhuman Advertising. Super Bowl 2011 has its fair share, and is thus complete, but that’s no reason to be happy because these commercials should make you weep, especially because Bud Light commercials now seem witty compared to their competition.

For instance, Bud Light commercials--like the one depicting a home improvement project made better by just adding a bucket of Bud Light, or the obvious product placement one--depend on you assuming people are alcoholics. This is fine: alcoholics are social, and easily pleased. Women are put upon in Bud Light ads, but not assaulted or harmed. Pets are side gags.

Did we just witness history? It’s the Super Bowl, it’s the year 2011, and we just saw Eminem cuss. He said “damn” on network television, and he was cussing about, of all things, Lipton iced tea. Here is video:

Firstly, we’d like to offer congratulations to Marshall P. Eminem, Esq. for remaining relevant -- it’s tough for a rapper to do that for 12 years, and possibly unprecedented for a rapper of his popularity. Anyway, you can say “damn” on network television during hours children might be watching. That isn’t new. Commercials, though, try to scale back on the offensive content, especially if they’re shilling something as commonplace and all-ages as iced tea. I’m glad that iced tea didn’t disappoint you, Marshall.

It appears as though we have our first notable commercial of the 2011 Super Bowl. Audi advertised its automobiles with a “break out of the confines of old luxury” motif.

Essentially, a prison full of old-money rich people sit in their luxurious cells, when some prisoners spark a jailbreak. Here’s video of the commercial:

The rich folks are nearly thwarted when Kenny G music is blared through the prison’s PA system. In case you’re curious, the song is “Songbird” and you are lame for wondering. Don’t worry, I was just as lame.

Hahaha, Groupon’s trio of Super Bowl 2011 commercials, we get it. It’s very funny that you know celebrity activism is tired. This was a funnier joke when Faith No More made fun of it twenty-five years ago. That song is now the theme of Dirty Jobs, and no one knows it has a very off-color joke about Rock Hudson. Life is wonderful that way sometimes.

So if I am to watch Liz Hurley conflate the loss of Brazilian rain forest, there are some comments to be made.

Super Bowl XLV is now minutes away from kickoff, which means we’re in for football interspersed with a series of stay-at-home film festivals -- or, in other words, commercials. Some ads -- such as Volkswagen’s mini-Darth Vader commercial -- have already been released to popular acclaim, but most have yet to be seen by the public in full capacity.

Follow along with this StoryStream for updates. If you’re more interested in following the game itself, check out our Super Bowl hub for live score updates, commentary, and anything and everything else Super Bowl XLV-related. And finally, if you’d like to follow along with like-minded fans, check in with SB Nation’s Packers blog, Acme Packing Company, and our Steelers blog, Behind The Steel Curtain.