At AdSavvy we’ve come to the conclusion that one of the 10 biggest events of the year is the release of the SuperBowl Commercials for that year. We even think it should be considered an entirely separate event from the Super Bowl. Because really, it’s a cultural phenomenon.

The day after the SuperBowl each year, all of the top searches on Google are people looking for this or that superbowl commercial. The most popular videos on YouTube end up being superbowl commercial videos. More people talk about their favorite super bowl commercial at work the next day then they do about the SuperBowl itself.

It will be no different in 2011. Long after people remember the game, people will still be talking about the commercials.

This year, AdSavvy will be posting every single 2011 SuperBowl commercial on our site. We will also be providing analysis and our votes for the best Super Bowl commercials of 2011.

Based on purely anecdotal evidence, and our professional opinion, there is no question as to this year’s most effective commercial and the overall winner of the Super Bowl ad wars. Not only was this Doritos commercial the best of the bunch, but the overall best group of advertisements goes to Doritos hands down. They were witty and fun and creative and just plain viral.

Check out the other Doritos commercials below.

So what’s going to distinguish the 2010 Super Bowl commercials from previous years? You want to know the truth? Nothing. They will still focus on cute little babies, animals and humor. There might be some very subtle sexual innuendo.

Marketers know human nature. They know what moves people. And the 2010 Super Bowl ads will pretty much follow the same formula – hopefully with some added twists. Perhaps the real news will be whether America still approves of Tim Tebow when all is said and done.

Stay posted… Super Bowl Commercial videos to be posted below.

Which ad am I referring to?

The iconic Apple 1984 Big Brother ad of course!

Developed for the superbowl, and contrasting the Apple free spirit with the Big Blue Big Brother of the dominant IBM competitor, Apple created a huge amount of buzz and anticipation, and for many this commercial still sums up the ideal of Apple Macs to this day.

Add to the mix expert direction from none other than Bladrunner Director Ridley Scott and you have a recipe for a historic advert, even though it was only intended to be on screen for a few minutes.

According to YouTube’s AdBlitz, The Tide Talking Stain commercial from Super Bowl 2008 was the number 1 commercial of the year. So let’s take a look at why it worked, and how it’s style can be duplicated as a general marketing principle.

There are several things that work about this commercial. First, and foremost, you’ll notice that the majority of the commercial sounds like an annoying foreign language. This grabs the viewer’s attention because immediately the viewer is aware that he is unable to make sense of the pseudo-language. Not only does it grab the viewer’s attention, but it forces him or her to focus even harder while trying to make sense of the gibberish.

But annoying often doesn’t work by itself. In fact, annoying can create negative associations with the product. So Tide needed to pull in a few additional strategies to make this commercial work. What did they do?

Well, two things. They brought in the humor hook part-way through the advertisement, introducing a surprise absurdity: a talking stain on the interviewee’s shirt. They simultaneously introduced the “I can relate” hook both in terms of awkward embarrassment for the interviewee and empathy for the interviewer (everyone’s been in a situation where their conversation partner has some embarrassing “look at me” issue).

The “I can relate” hook works wonder for reinforcing the viewer’s need for the product. No one wants to walk into an interview with a distracting stain on their shirt. What’s the solution? Tide To Go.

Brilliant Marketing.

This year’s E-Trade Super Bowl commercial featured a talking baby sitting in front of the computer doing stock trades. The commercial was a huge success for E-Trade on several fronts.

The Cute Baby Hook

In my last article I described the Humor Hook ad strategy for viewer engagement. While this E-Trade commercial certainly includes humor, it’s main “hook” is what I refer to as “The Cute Baby Hook” – it works as an ad strategy because everyone loves cute babies. Just like the Humor Hook, The Cute Baby Hook creates positive associations with the company product. But it also runs the same risk: the cute baby might overshadow the product and make it forgettable.

E-Trade solved this problem very simply by making it’s product (online stock trades) the main activity of the baby. The humor hook combines merges with the cute baby hook in the very activity that E-Trade wants you to remember: online stock trading.

Do you see how this is a brilliant move by E-Trade? Everyone is going to remember the cute talking baby and what the cute talking baby was doing. He was doing an adult activity (which contributes to the humor hook) which is the activity being sold.

So not only do we associate online stock trading with the positive attributes of cute babies (forget the diapers, E-Trade didn’t include them), but we are also being reminded of the simplicity of online trading (if a baby can do it, so can I).

Brilliant use of the humor and cute baby hooks… brilliant work from E-Trade all around.

Commercials such as this one from Cars.com rely almost exclusively on humor to grab the viewer’s attention and create positive associations with the product (e.g. car shopping with Cars.com).

In this Cars.com commercial, you actually see a secondary advertising method used, namely celebrity association (here the actor from the popular TV Show Bones is used). But this ad succeeds or fails based on the humor.

The commercial starts off mundane enough…the first 10 seconds are actually quite boring, with typical brand mentions artificially sprinkled in…but that’s part of the strategy for setting up the humor. At 12 seconds, the Cars.com commercial transitions from mundane into hilarious and outrageous. In fact, it is not uncommon for people who have viewed this commercial to break out laughing as soon as they see the big man with a shrunken head.

Perhaps the most commonly used strategy for Super Bowl commercials is what we refer to as the “humor hook.” People love to laugh. Laughter is a tonic that makes people feel good. So, it comes as no surprise that you can make a lot of progress simply by associating your product with the good feelings a person feels when laughing.

The one downside to the humor hook is that the humor can draw more attention than the the actual product, making the product forgettable. In fact, consumer interviews clearly show that a significant number of viewers will remember “the funny witch-doctor commercial” but not the product it was advertising.

In the case of the Cars.com commercial they partially resolved this issue by situating the whole thing at a car dealership. So at the very least, viewers of the commercial would have a vague notion that “the witch-doctor commercial” was about cars and car shopping.

1 where were those legs? You’ve seen them– they go on for days. So, tell me… How did the producers manage to keep them off the monitor?

2 the woman was sitting down. The only time the world should be deprived of seeing such a beautiful creature standing up is if she’s on her back, or on all fours.

3 a little more action. A female as gorgeous as Adriana Lima needs to be seen in action to be fully appreciated. Crawling towards you, walking away from you…

4 girl has mad back. Here we have a specimen who possesses one of the most spectacular rear ends known to human existence, and also a few producers who somehow thought we wouldn’t feel cheated out of viewing it.

5 more cleavage, please. The girl’s profession is modeling bras and underwear for a living, so we know she can maximize what she’s got going on. Who’s idea was it to put her in non-cleavage-enhancing lingerie?

6 everything about her was understated. Considering every feature that she has is completely exaggerated, I feel that this particular portrayal of Miss Lima was just downright criminal.

7 that football she was holding obstructed the view. Not that anyone one would mind watching her play any sport… I just know that we would all rather see her stretched out across the goal line.

8 just hose her down. This is one thought that can instantly take you from mental image to full-blown day dream.

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Not surprisingly, the show was canceled. And GEICO decided they’d capitalize on the show’s failure by employing a little self-mockery. They aired this commercial during Super Bowl 2008:

The GEICO commercial positions the “real” Cavemen (from the GEICO commercials) as analysts of the “fake” Cavemen from the ABC TV Show, suggesting that the mistake was in using fake Cavemen who wore makeup.

In my opinion the commercial worked for two reasons. First, it referenced a real cultural phenomenon that people could identify with: the putrid quality of the Cavemen TV show. Second, by poking fun at the TV Show using a bit of ingenious self-mockery, GEICO was able to separate and resurrect its own Cavemen from the death they died in the TV show.

America likes when its superstars acknowledge their mistakes and poke fun at themselves. Politicians know this all too well and regularly engage in the practice. In my opinion, GEICO did exactly what was necessary to re-animate the classic Cavemen ad series.

According to Nielsen Media Research, Victoria’s Secret’s lingerie commercial in the 2008 Super Bowl was seen by 103.7 million viewers, more than any other.

Why was the ad buy a risk?

Unless the game is close, a 9:45pm commercial in the Super Bowl runs the risk of being seen by far fewer people than a first quarter commercial which is the most consistent quarter for peak viewership during the Super Bowl. For lots of people, the Super Bowl “event” ends at half time. Unless, of course, the game is close.

To make a long story short, here’s the risk: most Super Bowl games are not close. And the commercials that get least watched during a blowout are the commercials in the 4th quarter.

Why Victoria’s Secret Took The Risk

Company spokespersons indicated that the reason they took the risk was because of the proximity to Valentine’s Day which happens to be the biggest calendar event for the lingerie industry. With the Super Bowl creeping further and further into February, and happening less than 2 weeks before Valentine’s day, Victoria’s Secret could position themselves for a massive spike in sales.

Hedging Their Bets

Victoria’s Secret had an ace up their sleeve for this Super Bowl. For one, they knew that more than most Super Bowls, this one had historical implications. For that reason alone, there would be a peak in viewership to the very end of the game. Millions of men (the true audience of VS ads) would want to brag about having seen the Patriots go 18 and 0. Even if the expected blowout took place.

Lucky for Victoria’s Secret, the Super Bowl was not only historical, it was extremely close in the 4th quarter.

So what’s the lesson to learn for advertisers? You should always have an intimate appreciation for the context in which your ad will appear. And if you do your research, you might be able to play your cards better than the dealer and win out big.