I'm not much of a fan of Super Bowl commercials. But since my pick for greatest commercial ever has descended into serial commercial territory, I took this year as an opportunity to look for something new. And while I think this year's offering was once again largely forgettable, there were a couple big losers and one big winner.
The clear loser, in my opinion, is Bud Light, for about the tenth year in a row. Whatever ad agency Bud Light uses has eschewed its creative department in favor of a recycling department. For as long as I can remember, Bud Light commercials have all been variations on one of four themes:
1) I will kick you in the crotch if you try to get my Bud Light
2) I will kick you in the crotch to get your Bud Light
3) Given the choice between drinking a Bud Light and dating a supermodel, I would take the Bud Light
4) In order to attain or retain a Bud Light, I will endure anything, including (but not limited to) getting kicked in the crotch
When you go to business school, the first thing you learn is that the best, most sustainable way to create brand equity is to establish a preference for your brand in the consumer's mind over his crotch and his friend's crotch. Bud Light has mastered this, and they've hammered the point home with flatulent horses, tumbling port-a-potties, and parachuteless parachutists.
Another notable loser is SalesGenie. Okay, so you created an ad for the largest audience on the planet, promoting a product that no more than 5% of them can actually use. Congratulations, you're officially a dot com, following in the proud tradition of all those trailblazing commercials that we saw five years ago. The only difference is that it's 2007, and you should know better.
On the other hand, maybe it does belong on Super Sunday. Based on the commercial, if you use SalesGenie, you will become more attractive to the opposite sex, you will drive a better car, and you will be envied by all of the men you hang around with. Sounds like a beer/soda commercial if I ever heard one.
The best ads were the ones for Coke, which for a long time has been conceding the Super Bowl spotlight to Pepsi. But where the Pepsi ads tend to be funny and try to be hip, Coke's latest ads are iconic, the perfect offering from a brand that knows it's #1. Coke knows that all they have to do is show you a silhouette of the bottle, and half their work is done (the bottle was actually the main character in two commercials).
Advertisers should take note of what Coke did, which is not to say that they should mimic Coke. The great thing about advertising is that it allows all kinds of brands to make all kinds of impressions, each according to what makes it special in the eyes of consumers. And yes, in some cases that means being irreverent. Pepsi, Frito Lay, and, yes, Bud Light are some brands that might do well trying to be funny. Nationwide, as near as I can tell, would be foolish to do the same, and yet they played the game too this year, giving us a Kevin Federline ad that made us chuckle (and that's it). It's said that when you're a hammer everything looks like a nail. The corrolary to that, apparently, is that if you're doing a Super Bowl ad everything looks like a potential pratfall or punch line.
Monday, February 5, 2007
Saturday, February 3, 2007
The Ethics of the Exit Row Lean-Back
As any air traveler taller than five feet, one half inch knows, it's not a whole lot of fun to fly coach. What is slightly less fun is sitting coach in the row immediately behind the exit row, tantalizingly close to a precious few extra inches of leg room. And even less fun than that is sitting in the row behind the exit row and having the person in front of you flaunt his extra space by leaning his seat as far back as possible, the tray table threatening to jab you in the stomach. The exit row lean-back is quite a slap in the face, but is it unethical?
When I travel, I try to keep from leaning back because I know how it feels to have someone leaning back in to me. I guess you could say that I try to live by rules that I feel should apply universal to everyone, a concept called the categorical imperative. Though some people would like to lean back, that represents an intrusion to others, so the best thing is for everyone to keep his fingers off the recline button.
Of course, many arguments can be made for a universal lean-back allowance. The value gained by the leaner is greater than the loss suffered by the leanee, so leaning back makes a lot of sense from a utilitarian (the greatest good for the greatest number) standpoint, so long as you're not in the very back row. A consequentialist would argue that you can lean back as long as the person behind you is not exceptionally tall. But how does all of this affect the exit row?
I think a lot of the exit row lean-back mentality depends on how you believe you landed in the exit row, as well as how long you plan to stay there. If you see it as a lottery, a mechanism that more or less randomly assigns the exit row and can take it away just as easily, I can see how you would be content with all of your extra space and won't try to grab any more. ("There but for the grace of Sabre go I.") If, on the other hand, you view your placement as a result of early purchasing, high airline miles, and years of hard work, you might be less sympathetic to those who have yet to pay their dues.
If the lean-back decision is an ethical choice, it isn't much of one (which is to say that it is not very consequential), but I do think that our airline behavior serves as one obvious example of how poorly we can behave when we are around people we never expect to see again. So the next time you're flying, don't tie up too much of everyone else's time wedging a too big carry-on into the overhead, don't clog the area leading to the jetway if your group hasn't yet been called, and, if you find yourself in an exit row and see my smiling face immediately behind you, please resist the temptation to grab some superfluous space.
When I travel, I try to keep from leaning back because I know how it feels to have someone leaning back in to me. I guess you could say that I try to live by rules that I feel should apply universal to everyone, a concept called the categorical imperative. Though some people would like to lean back, that represents an intrusion to others, so the best thing is for everyone to keep his fingers off the recline button.
Of course, many arguments can be made for a universal lean-back allowance. The value gained by the leaner is greater than the loss suffered by the leanee, so leaning back makes a lot of sense from a utilitarian (the greatest good for the greatest number) standpoint, so long as you're not in the very back row. A consequentialist would argue that you can lean back as long as the person behind you is not exceptionally tall. But how does all of this affect the exit row?
I think a lot of the exit row lean-back mentality depends on how you believe you landed in the exit row, as well as how long you plan to stay there. If you see it as a lottery, a mechanism that more or less randomly assigns the exit row and can take it away just as easily, I can see how you would be content with all of your extra space and won't try to grab any more. ("There but for the grace of Sabre go I.") If, on the other hand, you view your placement as a result of early purchasing, high airline miles, and years of hard work, you might be less sympathetic to those who have yet to pay their dues.
If the lean-back decision is an ethical choice, it isn't much of one (which is to say that it is not very consequential), but I do think that our airline behavior serves as one obvious example of how poorly we can behave when we are around people we never expect to see again. So the next time you're flying, don't tie up too much of everyone else's time wedging a too big carry-on into the overhead, don't clog the area leading to the jetway if your group hasn't yet been called, and, if you find yourself in an exit row and see my smiling face immediately behind you, please resist the temptation to grab some superfluous space.
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