S.L. experts bowled over by game ads

A group of ad experts gathered Sunday in Salt Lake to critique the Super Bowl commercials, which sold for an average $2.5 million per half-minute.

It was the sixth year for the critique session, said Kelly Casaday, president of Letter 23 advertising agency. With as many as 40 or 50 minutes of commercials during the game, and the ads reaching 60 percent of American households, it is also a Super Bowl for the advertising industry, he said.

Because the Academy Awards show — another showplace for national ads — might be canceled this year due to the writers' strike, advertisers were planning to make a big splash at the Superbowl, he said as the game began.

"We've got high hopes for this year."

The first ad, by Bud Light, featured a romantic evening during which the leading man lights candles with his breath. Then he accidentally blows a fireball toward a cat. Then he lights much of the dining room on fire. It's so goofy you laugh out loud. "It was everything you want in a commercial," Casaday said.

He rated it 9.3 in the group's ratings, which have a possible high of 10. Others also give it good scores.

A Diet Pepsi ad with people's heads bobbling, people falling asleep at all sorts of places, then the folks waking up when they get a swig of the soft drink, did not fare quite as well. But Sage Turk, the agency's creative director, conceded he liked "the guy with the comb-over who hit his face in the soup." Sue Winchester, the public relations director, awarded it an 8.

A beer commercial shows the guys smuggling a six-pack past the women inside a large piece of fake cheese. "I'm going to give it 4 because you expect more from a beer commercial," said Casaday. "How many times have we (seen a) commercial, 'Let's see if we can trick the women into something?"'

A woman driving a car equipped with Bridgestone tires is about to hit a squirrel on the road; the squirrel screams and the scream is picked up by all sorts of other animals. The woman herself grimaces as if screaming. But with those gripping tires, she safely swerves and misses the squirrel.

"Ten!" exclaimed Wendy Woodland, an account manager.

Casaday said "All right! I like that one!" It's a tire ad with the sophistication of some beer commercials, he added. "OK, Bridgestone scream, I'm giving it a 9.5."

Winchester: "I'm going to give it an 8. But what I liked about it was in the casting of the woman in the car. She was great."