More: Super Bowl Commercials 2012.
Playtime's over, wayward advertising agencies: We've dispensed with our exalting of 2011's best Super Bowl commercials, and now it's time to visit the other end of the barrel and decry the year's worst ads. Where most of our favorite commercials during Super Bowl 45 involved cars, nearly all the ones we hated concerned websites. Stop making the internet look bad, all of you! We're trying to work here!
In ascending order of terribility, the most abysmal ads of Super Bowl XLV:
1-3. Groupon.com. All of them.
Way to take a useful service that lots of people use and like and turn it into an after-party joke, using just a trio of laughably ill-conceived ads! Our staffers were torn between "confusing and reprehensible" when trying to categorize the campaign, which, believe it or not, was intended to highlight some of the charitable works Groupon's been doing, but instead ended up being the wrong kind of punchline. Here's the worst offender, featuring the plight of the Tibetan people and Timothy Hutton in his worst career move since The Golden Spiders: A Nero Wolfe Mystery:
4. Homeaway.com, "Dept. of Detourism."
Our own Spencer Hall summed it up nicely: "If your Super Bowl 2011 commercial leaves the lingering taste of "maimed baby" in my mouth, can I gently suggest you've just swindled your client out of money and harmed their brand simultaneously?"
T-5. Pepsi Max. All of them.
Our Coca-Cola-loving brethren at SB Nation Atlanta pilloried these last night for their utter inability to measure up to the well-received Coke Dragon ad. All we have to add is this: Before yesterday, we had no idea what Pepsi Max was. Today, we have no idea what Pepsi Max is, but the idea vaguely repulses us. Excellent work, sirs.
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