Hyperbole Year II: First quarter brand blahs

Believe it or not, I completely missed this year’s Super Bowl.  Looked like a classic Super Bowl ending, but with the ice storm, my cable and Internet were out for a more than a week.  And I just wasn’t in the mood to venture out on a winter night, not having a dog in that fight.  (See, Dennis, it DOES sometimes pay to be a Cleveland Browns fan!)  So I looked at SB commercials online, at the office (after hours, of course) on Monday.  But ain’t that kinda the way our world is going?
I’m kinda glad I missed it all because there just wasn’t a lot a lot of great marketing in the first quarter.  I can’t get all that excited about movie trailers (three in first quarter alone) since they just take great lines out of context and splice together thirty or forty-five seconds-worth of fun.  I thought the Audi Transporter and Toyota Venza spots looked like some frustrated filmmakers were stuck on Madison Avenue.  Talk about over-produced. Oh, and I own and Audi, so please to preach to me about reliability…I know better.
Pepsi’s Forever Young  put a lump in my throat.  I have an a strong affinity for that song and for Dylan.  Unfortunately for the sponsor,  I don’t drink Pepsi, but if I did, I’d feel better about my choice.  As it is, I’ll just thank Pepsi for the warm tingles it gave me on a cold night.
The highlight for me was the Doritos Bus spot.   FINALLY.  A commercial that went beyond trying to make me feel good about identifying with a brand.  Doritos showed some product features, benefits (albeit hyperbolic benefits) and even rock-solid demonstration!  It made me want to buy the product.
I can’t turn it over to Katy without asking GoDaddy.com: “You’re joking, right?  Please say you’re joking.”  The only thing worse was the online continuation.  There’s five minutes of my life I’ll never get back!  I choose not to link to that spot.  If you haven’t seen it, it’s not worth your time.
Now, to Katy Miller on the virtual Steelers’ sideline….