I used to watch the Super Bowl for the commercials, but sometime around 2004 the ads just didn’t feel special anymore. Maybe commercials year-round got better, maybe ad studios got more conservative, maybe having YouTube made the whole thing feel like a wasted event. Whatever it was, a lot of people seem to agree with me, Super Bowl ads just aren’t as noteworthy as they used to be.
Political ads, though… now that’s the stuff. The 21st century has allowed local campaigns to turn viral, and punk kids with bootlegged copies of Final Cut into political consultants. I was watching the morning news this weekend when I saw maybe the greatest political ad I’ve seen in my life:
The quick-cut shots of pigs in tight quarters, the graphic of a sheep felling from a pedestal with chain lightning, the music straight from the Lord of the Rings‘ Mount Doom, the sterile office space mixed with the narrators gruff voice that implies Carly Fiorina works in 24‘s Counter Terrorism Unit, the pregnant pauses when quoting Tom Campbell, and the wolf… oh goodness, that wolf. The ad is simply dumbfounding in its revelry of ridiculousness, and making it a YouTube exclusive and counting on the viral promotion of blogs and tweets saves millions in TV advertising. This is the hype machine on the 21st century.
The auteur behind this spot, Fred Davis III, is an authentic Hollywood man and has been called “an internet genius” by New York magazine. This is the third time in recent memory one of his political attack ads has been in the news. In case you missed them, here are his anti-Blagojevich “Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow” and anti-Obama “Celebrity” spots:
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