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Superbowl Tech Ads, 1976–Present
Ian Lamont writes "Computerworld has put together a collection of interesting, funny, and just plain weird Superbowl television advertisements from tech companies — excluding Internet retailers. Everyone has seen the Macintosh ad that played during the 1984 Superbowl, but there are a bunch of other gems, starting with a long-winded ad for the Xerox 9200 from 1976. The funniest is probably EDS's 'herding cats' ad from 2000, but there are some oddities, too, including a bizarre ad for Network Associates depicting a Russian nuclear missile launch, and a very dated ad for Sharp from the mid-1980s. Intel has one ad in the collection from 1997, and it turns out that it is returning with two ads this year that it says feature 'geek humor.'"
I suppose TFA consists of blank pages if I check the disable advertising box?
That EDS ad was pretty funny until you realized that YOU were the cats. Without EDS to "herd" those aimless technical staffers why where would your company be? Thank goodness HP bought them.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/9152078/Top_10_Super_Bowl_tech_ads?taxonomyName=Hardware&taxonomyId=12
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
If the commercials are actually funny ...I'll catch them on YouTube tomorrow.
If you do end up watching them on YouTube, then the advertisers will still have succeeded. They care less about where there ads are viewed, just the number of eyeballs viewing them. The reason they focus on the Superbowl is that it's a media extravaganza, and the ads are a big deal, simply because they're in the superbowl. So, a superbowl ad will more likely have more views on YouTube than just some random ad from TV.
Does anyone else miss adcritic.com, the video site from the late 90's? They were ahead of their time, and had a collection legitimately hilarious ads, like the one for Slapshots.com that featured a guy insisting he could golf through the trees and ended up nailing his skeptical friend in the crotch with a ricochet off a tree.
Apparently they have embed to a web site that wasn't too happy about the extra traffic and has a user/pass lock on most of the videos mentioned in TFA. Some of the Youtube ones are still available.
[J]
That is a stereotype, and it most certainly does not have a basis in reality.
I'm a geek, most of the people I work with are geeks, and about half will probably watch the Super Bowl. If you ask around, you'll probably find that around the same proportion of geeks are into football as about any other random segment of the population. Maybe even more, since "geek" is a predominantly male demographic, as is "Super Bowl watcher." I have a Falcons tag on the front of my car, thank you very much, and I've gotta say, that red and black logo on my red car does look sweet.
Granted, I'm not into fantasy football leagues, and I can't quote a bunch of stats or tell you who led the league in touchdown receptions, but that doesn't apply to most average Joes, either. I do enjoy watching the competition at its highest level, the ads are generally the cream of the crop and funny, plus a Who concert to boot? Jesus, count me in, let's kick off already!
Oh, and lest I forget, Go Colts! Sorry Saints, I don't hate you, but I just don't think it's not your year yet. Plus, any chance that Peyton Manning gets to prove that he's a better QB than Pretty Boy Brady is a sure-fire opportunity for me to root for his team.
Seriously - why bother?
Geeks, at least the type of geek who cares who is making their cpu generally don't watch the superbowl.
Based on your small circle of friends? I could make the opposite based on the "geeks" that I know. Computer science majors, run their own web-design company, as well as build their own computers as a hobby. We've been playing in a fantasy football league together for 5+ years now.
You're also forgetting that the Super Bowl is more of a social event. I'm a Giants fan, so I barely paid attention to the playoffs, but I'm watching the game today because someone is having a party for it.
Usually a couple days after the game, a page with all Super Bowl ads will be online and you should be able to watch them all.
...to do business.
Last time the "greatest Superbowl tech ads of all time" came up, they were already missing the iconic Sun commercial as well:
http://idle.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=440612&cid=22285924
http://www.ephemeraweb.org/journal/1-3/decocketal/FTads/FT031/FT31.htm
Still not on YouTube?
they didn't require credentials when the article went up friday; the site hosting the ads got slashdotted
Apple's 2nd over-the-top so-bad-it's-great SuperBowl ad for the (unsuccessful) Macintosh Office.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mISsehE7tp4
Now that's some smack talk!
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
The only people who think geeks don't care about social events are geeks who don't care about social events.
Two words: Stevie Wonder.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I read Google will air this tonight.
Kind of like trying to watch videos on a slashdotted site.
Table-ized A.I.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnQMq5wtZcg
And there was another one, from a dot bomb company (1999?). I can't find it but it went something like this:
Guy standing before blank screen
Says:
"We got a bunch of money for a Super Bowl ad. But it was too late to put one together. So I'll just stand here for 30 seconds."
Looks at watch and commercial eventually fades out.
Those two ads epitomize the dot bomb stupidity for me. The market crashed in spring of 2000
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
You would be twiddling your thumbs most of the time even if you were watching it in the US, because there are only 11 minutes of actual play time in a 3 hour long game. That is why the ads are the centrepiece of the show.
"You can't allow somebody to commit the crime before you detain them." [Condoleezza Rice]
Adcritic got hit by the actors' guild (or whatever it's called), when the actors realized they weren't getting paid for the internet playtime. Most USA contracts stipulated royalties to the actors every time the commercial aired. I'm no longer working in the ad biz, so I don't know what has changed since then to allow ubiquitous internet playback. Maybe everything is shot in Canada now, where the contracts are less generous. Or maybe Youtube has just made it impossible to keep the genie in the bottle?
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
During a baseball game the bat is in contact with the ball for only 7.3 seconds. And a two-hour movie has only 18 minutes of dialogue if you remove all the pauses. And a four-hour drive has only 5 minute of actual turns. And during an eight-hour workday a key on your keyboard is depressed for only 19 minutes.
You have to have a really skewed perception of time to feel that you're shortchanged by getting only 11 minutes of boom-boom action in a football game. I have watched many football games in person without commercial broadcast (high school and college) and somehow they still take more than 11 minutes to finish.