What to do when 90 million viewers aren’t enough?
Make sure your commercial plays before, during and after the big game.
This year, a growing number of advertisers have leaked their Super Bowl ads in advance to generate more buzz and downloads. The idea, reports AdWeek, is to “maximize the value of their $2.6 million (per 30-second) ad buy.”
This year’s marketing ploys include user-generated ad contests, video-sharing sites, blogs, mobile advertising and Webisodes, plus additional content on individual brand sites.
Frito Lay, the NFL and Chevrolet got their campaigns rolling in October, asking for consumer-generated spots. (AdWeek says the spots Frito Lay chose as finalists were done by experienced filmmakers and “appear very professional.”)
Pepsi, the halftime sponsor, is giving away a jewel-encrusted can worth $100,000, registering contenders at a site built for the brand. Coca-Cola will be back after a 10-year absence from the big game. Anheuser- Busch continues as one of the event’s biggest spenders.
Nationwide Insurance released its K-Fed ad early, featuring Britney Spears’ ex, Kevin Federline, as a fast-food worker. While other advertisers are playing it safe, GoDaddy.com has been getting ink for its attempts to run a risqué ad in light of the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction.
AdWeek quotes industry observers saying Sunday’s Super Bowl XLI on CBS could be the most “gimmicky” in memory.
Sadly for fans of funny spots, the CareerBuilder chimps have been retired in favor of a new ad campaign.
Oh, we hear the Chicago Bears and Indianapolis Colts have something to do with Sunday’s broadcast too. But we’ll be watching the commercials as usual – and blogging at denverpostbloghouse.com.
Call her crazy
Sarah Silverman is the nice Jewish girl’s answer to Larry David. She’s the pretty, young woman whose absurdist humor tiptoes toward sweet, then takes a sharp turn into wrong every time.
Depending how offended you were by David’s selfish, misanthropic sense of entitlement in “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” you may want to pass on “The Sarah Silverman Program,” a superbly odd half-hour debuting this week on Comedy Central. (Last night’s premiere is replaying all weekend. New episodes debut Thursdays at 11:30 p.m.)
If you can get past the gross- out moments to enjoy Silverman’s giddy, wacky take on the idea of a personalized TV show, there is cool, edgy humor wedged between the sick, awful moments. Sarah in an altered state after swigging cough syrup, waking up behind the wheel of her car on a playground is just the beginning. Sometimes, this series occasionally proves, the distance between a Comedy Central comedy and a home video posted on a website is negligible.
Prepare for a wildly irreverent late-night ride: Giddy high, followed by disgusting anatomical reference, followed by clever observational humor.
The former “Saturday Night Live” writer/cast member, who wrote the 2005 film “Jesus Is Magic,” has finally found a showcase for her unconventional shtick. She regularly plays against her lovely looks: so demure with flowing dark hair and big brown eyes (a police officer character describes her as “Jewy but hot”) – until she opens her mouth.
Silverman features herself in upbeat and romantic music videos. She nearly embraces a lovely, TV-ready life lesson – with regard to kids dying of leukemia or a wheelchair race or the responsibility of being a friend – until she careens crazily into crass obliviousness. Like something Homer Simpson would say, but with the pretty smile.
Just when you catch yourself thinking she looks nice in a flowing white dress, standing on rocks above the ocean, you realize she’s singing about “poop.”
ABC comedies
“The Knights of Prosperity,” the above-average Donal Logue comedy, will get a chance to prosper when ABC moves it out of the way of Fox’s “American Idol” this week. Locally, “Knights” will be broadcast at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays on KMGH-Channel 7. ABC’s other freshman comedy is neither so lucky nor deserving: “In Case of Emergency” will be sacrificed to “Idol” at 8:30 p.m. locally.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
