Super Bowl Advertisers Stick With Humor

NEW YORK Justin Bachman wrting for the AP reported that Super Bowl advertisers hewed to humor for the most part Sunday night, offering viewers plenty of ridiculous reasons to giggle between plays on the field.

The game's biggest ad buyer, Anheuser-Busch Inc., tweaked pro football's review rule and the league's troubled officiating this season with a zebra as referee during a game between Budweiser Clydesdales. (The ad aired, coincidentally, right before the Tampa Bay Buccaneers got a successful review of a turnover call.)

Reebok had ``Terrible Terry Tate, the office linebacker,'' as a corporate motivator who tackles workers needing instruction and then loudly berates their conduct.

When one man takes the last cup of coffee from the break room, Tate pounces. ``You killed the joe, you make some mo!'' he screams at the office drone, who cowers on the floor.

Super Bowl commercials are traditionally among the most coveted and prestigious in the advertising world, with a U.S. TV audience topping 100 million and few channel surfers. The game offers advertisers a forum for exhibiting their skills to a huge, diverse group of people — some who watch solely for the ads.

This year's 30-second slots sold for between $2.1 million and $2.2 million, about 10 percent more than last year. For the second consecutive year, Anheuser-Busch was the game's largest advertiser, with 11 spots.

About 40 percent of the game's commercial spots were bought by four advertising behemoths: Anheuser-Busch, General Motors Corp., Sony Corp. and PepsiCo.

When the ads weren't on the screen, Tampa Bay was winning its first Super Bowl, 48-21.

Michael Jordan showed up in two ad campaigns.

In Gatorade's Super Bowl debut, Jordan of today plays against his younger self, the No. 23 icon of the Chicago Bulls. In a spot for Hanes, Jordan smirks as actor Jackie Chan scratches at the shirt tag irritating his neck. The ad shows off Hanes' new tagless T-shirts.

Big-budget movies played their usual role, with Arnold Schwarzenegger on hand to tout his summer action flick, ``Terminator 3,'' and Warner Bros. offering many viewers their first peeks of the two new ``Matrix'' movies scheduled to be released this year.

Budweiser offered the ``never-gonna-happen'' scenario of a man attracted to his girlfriend's roommate. The girlfriend tells him to ``just date both of us.''

A Bud Lite ad featured a man sneaking into a no-pets bar by putting his Hungarian Puli on his head and pretending it's dreadlocks.

McDonald's offered a humorous twist on the bad day of a bedraggled dad: his equally frazzled young son forced to contend with a flat bike tire and a surprise math quiz. Then mom offers McDonald's, to which the precocious boy replies, ``That's what I love about that woman.''

Pepsi hired Ozzy Osbourne's prominent clan to push Pepsi Twist. The rock legend finds himself in a nightmare house where his kids turn out to be Donny and Marie Osmond.

James Veltri, a real estate manager watching the game in Jersey City, N.J., gave advertisers a generally positive review. The notable failures, he said, were Pepsi's Sierra Mist spots, which showed a monkey catapulted into a swimming pool and another where a poodle kicks off a fire hydrant cover, drenching the dog's owner on a sweltering day.

``I guess the point was that it was supposed to be refreshing,'' Veltri said. ``But I don't think they really got the message across — at least not to me.''