Week 3 - Late Breaking News

Super Bowl Ads 2008

While the Super Bowl this year, was a bit of an upset, the ads during the commercials were anything but. All the major companies were there this year: Coke, Pepsi, Doritos, Bud Light, and Dell. But the company that created the most buzz with their set of commercials had to be E*Trade.

With 3d animation, and Photoshop becoming the industry standard, E*Trade thought it would be clever to use these two amazing types of “truth benders” to make an incredibly clever ad. The first which can be found here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdfvWAp5GUw, courtesy of YouTube, depicts a baby talking directly into the camera. The baby proceeds to address his audience, in the voice of a man no less, and lets them know how much money he saves using E*Trade. Using a form of shock advertising, attention is immediately demanded when the baby starts to speak. Since the audience is not used to having a baby give them advice, there is no choice but to eagerly listen and be amazed at the “real-ish” baby going on about how he makes and saves a ton of money using E*Trade’s services.

The second ad found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vW9gUmooFg, also courtesy of YouTube, depicts the same baby, but in an even more comedic manner. Relying still on shock advertising, E*Trade has their star back. This time, instead of the baby saying how much money he saves, which was gathered from the first commercial, the baby shows you how easy the service is. Then after he purchases the stock he throws up all over himself.

These two commercials are great examples of getting a products name, or in this case a company’s service, stuck in your brain. Whenever I see someone I have not seen since the Super Bowl, both of us seem to say at the same time “Hey, did you see that E*Trade commercial?” It’s safe to say that America is asking the same question too, because according to data collected by TiVo, E*Trades commercials made the number one replay spot this year. It would seem that the amount of money they spent on this commercial was more than worth it. Let’s see if their $176 Billion in 4.3 million accounts goes up anytime soon. I’m willing to bet it will.