18 to 24 Insights: 2008 Super Bowl Commercial Predictions

For approximately three hours out of every year, I watch television for the sole purpose of watching commercials. While football enthusiasts might discuss the Super Bowl game itself this Monday, I look forward to comparing notes with friends on the best, worst and mediocre commercials.

This year’s lineup of advertisers include Budweiser, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Kraft, Planter’s Nuts, CareerBuilder.com, E-Trade, Disney, Toyota, FedEx and General Motors. In recent years, I’ve found that my favorite commercials weren’t those that aired during the Super Bowl. Given that programming and therefore television advertising is becoming more targeted, I would imagine that it becomes more and more difficult to appeal to the mass Super Bowl audience of (likely) over 100 million viewers.

I don’t know what Anheuser-Busch has in store for this year but they’ve purchased 7 spots. At $2.7 million per 30-second commercial, chances are they’ll be entertaining. The “Budweiser Frogs” spot is often ranked among the top Super Bowl commercials. It was later followed up by “Lizards.” In 2006, I thought “Streaker” was quite clever. It seems animals and beer are a winning combination. This year, I’d expect to see the same.

CareerBuilder.com’s ads have been my favorite for the last two years. 2006’s Monkeys ad and last year’s Jungle spot were laugh-out-loud funny. I’m excited to see what they’ll do this year to entice consumers to search for a new job.

In 1996, Pepsi debuted its “Surveillance” ad. The song, “Your Cheatin’ Heart” by Hank Williams, was the kind of song that would take days to get out of your head. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of this year’s advertisers employed this strategy.

Last year’s Emerald Nuts “Robert Goulet” spot was so-so but I did enjoy the use of a random celebrity, especially to endorse a product as boring as mixed nuts. The commercial played often during the rest of last year. I’ll admit that it made me chuckle but I didn’t really feel compelled to purchase Emerald Nuts. Perhaps this year, they’ll take a different approach.