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Super Bowl ads show off offers you can't refuse

BY KEIKO MORRIS | keiko.morris@newsday.com

February 4, 2008

Celebrities, dancing lizards, a screaming squirrel and an animated thumping heart made their way into this year's Super Bowl ads, offering some light humor but relying, as industry experts expected, more on the traditional styles of past years.

With a price tag of $2.7 million for a 30-second spot, advertisers typically go all out for the chance to capture the more than 90 million viewers experts expect to watch the game. By the half-time show, commercials that stood out were those that did not feature celebrities.

In the CareerBuilder.com ad, a pounding heart of a glum woman staring at her computer literally leaps from her chest, onto her keyboard and then the boss' desk, announcing - with a picket sign - "I quit." The message: "Follow your heart."

Tide to Go also capitalized around job anxiety, this time staging its ad in a job interview. The candidate responds only to be drowned out by incoherent babbling spouting from a reddish-brown stain on his white shirt.

Audi created a spoof of a famous scene from "The Godfather," in which the head of a horse is placed in the bed of a Hollywood producer, to send a message to other luxury brands. In Audi's ad, Alex Rocco, who played Moe Greene in "The Godfather," awakens in his satin pajamas horrified to find that he is covered in black grease, throws back the sheets to find the front grille of some anonymous classic-type car and screams.

One Bud Light ad showed a handful of men at a wine and cheese party revealing how they outsmarted their girlfriends. One has a six-pack of beer under a fake cheese wheel, another beer stored within a baguette.

In the animal category, lizards transformed by SoBe Life Water erupted into moves from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video, dancing with former supermodel Naomi Campbell. And Bridgestone showed off how well its tires can perform, showing a screaming squirrel in the road spared by Bridgestone tires that helped a driver swerve.