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Hyper-Bole 2010: 3rd Quarter, or "GRISWALDS!"

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For me, the 3rd Quarter ads were mostly a disappointment, but maybe that was just because my Colts were starting the slide down to defeat. I’m going to break it down this year into three categories: Horrible, Boring, Awesome. Very fine-grained, right?
Horrible
E-trade Milk-A-What Commercial. I admit that the baby Lindsey popping out with “Milk-a-what?” is pretty funny, but then I realize e-Trade is suggesting the male baby cheated on the other baby he’s trying to hide Lindsey from. Baby hook-ups are disturbing, that’s all I’m gonna say.
Both Beer Commercials. One with Lance Armstrong and one with floating beer . I’m very disturbed that during the Super Bowl’s third quarter, both beer commercials that ran touted how few calories they have. It’s beer dammit!  The fact that a low-calorie beer exists already offends me, but then to have the audacity to advertise it is a slap in the face. If you go out to get a beer and the first thing that crosses your mind is “I wonder how many calories this is?”, you shouldn’t be drinking beer.
Boring
Google’s “falling in love abroad” commercial. You know how much fun it is to watch someone else surf the internet? It’s not. So much so that I don’t think I really can say much more about this one.
Round up’s commercial was just .. meh. Did they even know they were showing on the Super Bowl? They literally did nothing cool or worth talking about the next day. Sure, their product was a bit animated, but they’ve done that before in non-Super Bowl ads too, so it was nothing new at all. Seems like a waste to me.
Awesome
VW’s punch buggy ad took me back to being a kid. Who DIDN’T play that game? Hitting people in commercials is funny, first of all (just look at the Dorito’s kid commercial everyone is talking about). Then a few key strikes were the best: kid looks like he punches his grandpa in the crotch, pregnant woman punches her husband and the Amish dude punches the other guy in his buggy. But nothing, NOTHING beats Stevie Wonder punching Tracey Morgan and calling out “Red one.” I’m pretty sure I have to go buy a VW now — it is a miracle car!
And though there were no special effects, no flash, no jazz .. THE GRISWALDS WERE ON TV! To be honest, the commercial actually made me want to check out the HomeAway website (I did) and go back (I will). But just for the fact that the Griswalds were in the commercial made me sit up and take attention, and I hope to all that is holy that this becomes a series of commercials. I really see the potential for them to tell a small “Vacation” story across several months of spots.

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Ed brings 15 years of traditional and digital media sales experience to the agency, giving us a perspective most agencies don’t have. When he’s not working or seeking new knowledge, Ed hangs out with his wife, two kids, two dogs, one cat, and a hamster. And yes, the cat and hamster are best friends.

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