[W Hoa]

Battle of the Super Bowl ads

Samsung�s Super Bowl commercial, featuring actors Seth Rogan, Paul Rudd and basketball star LeBron James, was probably among the best ads shown during the game � and a stark contrast to a BlackBerry ad that seemed to fall flat.

It was all about the (good) writing. The ad for Samsung�s Galaxy didn�t have a lot of action but instead focused on dialogue between the two stars from �Knocked Up� and �The 40-Year-Old Virgin.� It also was quite long, running at about two minutes compared to the 15- to 30-second spots from other companies like GoDaddy.

It�s worth a watch, if only to compare it to the BlackBerry commercial. Research In Motion launched its newest operating system, BlackBerry 10, with a pair of phones last week. But the advertising spot missed the mark, according to some executives.

Here's the Samsung Ad that Everyone Is Talking About - Digits - WSJ

[borceg]

First of all, sammy ad is one of the most ridiculous. WTF is the point of it ? Just some crap talk between 3 people and nothing else. Probably sammy paid most of medias to favour their ads and products, because they're scared from BlackBerry.

And who cares about them, BB is still top rated

[aniym]

Bloomberg BusinessWeek also pans the Blackberry ad, essentially saying it was risky to run a vague ad like that when brand awareness is already low. Samsung doesn't feature on either the best or worst. On the plus side, Mercedes-Benz's $60 million deal to put its logo on the inside of the dome roof for the next 10 years. BB's sponsorship of Mercedes Formula 1 team could pay dividends with Mercedes' increased visibility.

The Corporate Winners and Losers of Super Bowl XLVII - Businessweek

[cjcampbell]

Well, this proves to be more good news. In this situation, it's press no matter what. This will get people to go look at and watch the add, which in turn will get them to check out the website, which is pretty darn cool IMO.

[silversun10]

First of all, sammy ad is one of the most ridiculous. WTF is the point of it ? Just some crap talk between 3 people and nothing else. Probably sammy paid most of medias to favour their ads and products, because they're scared from BlackBerry.

And who cares about them, BB is still top rated

the main thing is the Blackberry launch got a mention, it is all good

[cjcampbell]

Bloomberg BusinessWeek also pans the Blackberry ad, essentially saying it was risky to run a vague ad like that when brand awareness is already low.

The Corporate Winners and Losers of Super Bowl XLVII - Businessweek

I love how they say it was risky because of low brand awareness, yet the fact that they are writing the article, will add to BB's brand awareness.

[eddy_berry]

Samsung ad just shows what a massive global company with deep pockets and huge marketing dept can do with all that money. Its easy to hire a bunch of writers and famous people and make an impact. I don't fall for that garbage. And ppl make fun of bb for making Alicia Keys a creative director as if nobody has ever done that before. I don't fall for that either but it seems to create buzz and that is the point of marketing.

[vespajet]

Even Howard Stern (who used to be a BlackBerry user) panned the BlackBerry commercial and said it was the worst commercial of the Super Bowl. He said that the ad agency who came up with the commercial as well as the executive that approved the ad should be fired and talked about how messed up the company is.

I'm definitely one who thinks the commercial was not that good; however the Samsung commercial with Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd was even worse.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

If you can't hang with the Big Boys....

Most of the really good ads were longer and thus a lot more money, but they allowed those advertiser (like Samsung) to tell more of a story that people could at least understand what was going on. BlackBerry's ad "look what we can't do" was funny in a way, but it was also lame and left too many people looking around and saying huh?

Think BB would have been better served not running a Super Bowl ad from a solely marketing view point, but then again it seems to have really helped the stock recover from the flubbed launch presentation. And they do say that negative publicity is better than no publicity!

[Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes]

unless the wall street journal is in the future this is just one persons opinion (or "some executives", suprised they didn't say "insiders"). The official polls for best commercial are still open.

[kbz1960]

I'm just a nobody but I thought the ad was, a superbowl ad. It was fun and playful and the end - 30 seconds not long enough etc was saying yep we can't do all that but we can do what they all do.

[shlammed]

You're all blinded by the fact that you're BB lovers. There were at least 30 commercials that were better than the BB commercial.

[frankbonaiuto]

i thought the ad did its job, superbowl ads are to be funny and stupid and they said too much to show you in 30 secs so look at the site.. people talking about it and it was funny, i liked it, i also thought samsungs was annoying...

[shlammed]

First of all, sammy ad is one of the most ridiculous. WTF is the point of it ? Just some crap talk between 3 people and nothing else. Probably sammy paid most of medias to favour their ads and products, because they're scared from BlackBerry.

And who cares about them, BB is still top rated

I bet you more people will remember that than the crappy BB ad

[Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes]

You're all blinded by the fact that you're BB lovers. There were at least 30 commercials that were better than the BB commercial.

not according to the official poll, which is the only way to objectively measure how most people felt about the commercials.

[silversun10]

You're all blinded by the fact that you're BB lovers. There were at least 30 commercials that were better than the BB commercial.

come on now, the Blackberry ad was voted #1 and got just because that huge exposure, how many ads can say that?

[m1a1mg]

Anyone who relies on online polls for any information is a moron. Too easily manipulated.

The BB ad didn't move me either way. My problem is this. If someone doesn't hang out at CB and sees that ad, might they go to the store today to see what the phone is about? That's not good.

[hpjrt]

Anyone who relies on online polls for any information is a moron. Too easily manipulated.

The BB ad didn't move me either way. My problem is this. If someone doesn't hang out at CB and sees that ad, might they go to the store today to see what the phone is about? That's not good.

It was a 30 second ad for heaven's sake. I'm no ad exec but I liked it. Do I care if the WSJ didn't like it? Nope. Do I think the a accomplished what it set out to do? Yep.

For all of you armchair quarterbacks - what would you have done in a 30 second spot? Any of you tried to conquer the Ad game? It's not nearly as easy as the critics would have you think. Bottom line - the ad has managed to get people talking about Blackberry. What else was it supposed to do?

[silversun10]

Anyone who relies on online polls for any information is a moron. Too easily manipulated.

The BB ad didn't move me either way. My problem is this. If someone doesn't hang out at CB and sees that ad, might they go to the store today to see what the phone is about? That's not good.

with the #1 vote comes extra exposure, that is a good thing, no two ways about it...

[texazzpete]

not according to the official poll, which is the only way to objectively measure how most people felt about the commercials.

You mean like how Crackberry readers are exhorted to go vote for the BB ad? Is that vote based on objectivity?

I guess BB fans would wanna support the ad by voting, but let's not pretend that the BB ad was the best one this year.

[Cracklen]

wall street journal

A ad or tech' industry magazine ? Going by the name imho not ! the world errorneously (sp?) looks to wall st. for way beyond their skill set !

nasdaq is probably just pissed that BB did not pay them $$$$ to make a media spot/ring-our-gong appearance on their 'balcony'.

[johnny_larue]

The superbowl ad was pretty bad, but I loved the other ad that I saw that talked about the history of RIM and the Blackberry. They should have used that one instead.

[W Hoa]

The author of that article is getting clobbered in the comments section.

[rrtek]

These guys didn't understand the ad, so the ad must be a piece of ****. Very clever rationale.

[Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes]

You mean like how Crackberry readers are exhorted to go vote for the BB ad? Is that vote based on objectivity?

I guess BB fans would wanna support the ad by voting, but let's not pretend that the BB ad was the best one this year.

and samsung tweeted for their users to go vote. Lots of companies did this. Its open game, and the winning ad at this point is Blackberry.