The Superbowl, Halftime and Advertising

"The reason women don't play football is because 11 of them would 

never wear the same outfit in public."

Phyllis Diller 

It's almost time for the Battle of the Titans... figuratively, not literally. In February the Superbowl will again be played.  It will be the first time the game will be played in a non-domed stadium as it will be in the Meadowlands (MetLife Stadium) in New Jersey. This also means that there will be two "host teams" (the Giants and the Jets) as they both play in the same stadium. As this is the first time the game will be held in a non-domed stadium, there is speculations there will be a winter storm / blizzard. Personally, I say, "Bring it on." Come on folks. Wouldn't that be just awesome - to have a Snow Bowl?  


And for those who watch the game for the Halftime Show... It's Bruno Mars. 

I like Bruno, but logistically if it is snowing, it will be more interesting to see technically how that will go down.  I mean Bruno plays guitar and sings. It's got to be harder to play a guitar with gloved/mittened hands and the cold definitely affects one's vocal chords. But he has two platinum albums so I think he will be okay. 

And speaking of halftime shows. It's been 10 years since Janet Jackson's performance with Justin Timberlake and the phrase "wardrobe malfunction" took hold in pop culture. Her exposed breast during the half-time show almost caused the internet to explode. That bit was better than her actual performance. I believe she meant for it to boost her career, but ten years later, her brother still has more success and she is but a pale reflection with a Jackson name. Timberlake; however, walked away from the incident pretty much unscathed and has had a successful career. Ahhh... Nipplegate. Who will ever forget? 

Finally, let's talk dough. Commercials for the SuperBowl are $4.0 million each for a mere :30 seconds nationally. That's some serious moolah. I know a lot of folks watch the game for the ads rather than the game. I go back and forth from year to year - it depends on who is playing and if the ads are any good. This year (2013), in my opinion, the ads weren't really worth the money. They kind of sucked.  

However, at this time there are some companies already announcing their plans to air ads in the SuperBowl:

Announced Super Bowl Advertisers for 2014:

Anheuser-Busch InBev
Dannon
Doritos
General Motors (Chevrolet)
GoDaddy
Hyundai
Intuit
Jaguar
Mars
Nestlé (Butterfinger)
Soda Stream
Wonderful Pistachios

Anheuser-Busch, Doritos and GoDaddy will probably have some of the best commercials during the game as they usually do. I'll expect to see some Clydesdales, excessive cheese and Danica Patrick muscled up for starters. 

Rumor has it at least one of the car manufacturers has purchased a two minute commercial time slot. It should be interesting. I believe it will be Chrysler, who is not on the list above, but they have been making heavy national ad purchases lately and if I were to make a guess - it's them. 

Dannon, Soda stream and Pistachios had better be new and creative otherwise that's going to be some serious bank that's just tossed out the window and could have been spent during the Olympics instead.  Now THAT is truly a marketing dream. 

Day 30 - How'd that happen?

Superbowl 45 was a bore. I'm sorry to the Packer's and Steeler's fans but in the overall scheme of things, the game was boooooooooor-ing. Even the commercials weren't really up the the normal snuff - though there were a few that reached a level of "awesome" including the Dorito's "Resurrection", Mini Darth Vader, the Bridgestone Beaver and the VW commercials. There were a few others, but those actually do stand out in my mind.

However... I do have a gripe. Usually Christina Aquilera can really give a great performance but when she sang the National Anthem she totally boffed it. The Diva took up an entire two minutes (give or take 10 seconds) to sing the national anthem because she wanted to put her own personal flair into it. By doing so - the lyrics went awry. When she was supposed to sing “o’er the ramparts we watched” she sang “what so proudly we watched”. This as well as the off-key singing was a little too much for this ol' Texas girl. She did finish the song in spite of the screw up and there were plenty of director takes of crying football players, but the mistake can't be forgotten. In fact, one wonders really why the players were tearing up.

However, at one point and time she actually knew the anthem and could actually sing it... case in point.

In fact, I dare say that if the NFL wanted to get it right they should have done a little something like this--->

In other news, been slowly and steadily working on my 142 days. As for diet... yeah, been better but not great. The Snickers bar I'm enjoying this afternoon is something I refuse to feel horrible about. It's either eat that or fall asleep face first on the desk. While I see the comedic value of that... probably wouldn't bode too well.

Lunch break is over. Time to get some real work done. Tally ho!