The New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles faced off in Super Bowl XXXIX on Sunday. But during timeouts, companies faced off against each other in the hugely popular annual battle of commercials.
After last year's "wardrobe malfunction" during the halftime show, some felt the television spots were not as entertaining as usual.
"I thought (the commercials) were pretty toned down compared to last year," said Ron Carney, a freshman business major. "Only one or two of them were really funny."
The ads students remembered the most from this year and recent years were the beer commercials.
"The most memorable ones are always the beer commercials," Carney said. He recalled the Budweiser frogs as one of his all-time favorites.J.R. Wicker, a nursing major, also liked the Budweiser frog ads as well as a Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial from a few years ago.
"I'm not really consciously into the products being advertised, but one year I was watching a KFC commercial that I thought was ridiculous. But 10 minutes later I had a craving to get some chicken," he said.So how effective are the Super Bowl commercials?
"It's the only reason I even watch the game," said freshman political science major SharDae Williams. "And I always remember which products go with which company."
Her favorite commercial from football are the Chunky soup ads featuring NFL players and their mothers.
Carney, however, said he couldn't recall any of the companies advertising Sunday. Neither could freshman Sheena Sain, a management information systems major. She said she enjoyed the recent beer ads pitting rivals Miller Lite against Bud Light, but couldn't list a favorite from Super Bowl XXXIX.
Sidney Mendelson, CEO of the Hispanic Memphis newspaper La Prensa Latina, said the ads were very effective and even described some as "awesome" ads.
"Last night's ads were what's known in the grocery industry as top-notch," he said. "The only one who can say whether or not (the commercials) were effective is going to be the buyer of the ad."He said that despite the multimillion-dollar cost of the ads, the commercials could be quite effective when broken down for cost effectiveness. Mendelson also noted the price paid for the creative design part of the ads was probably in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
No matter the cost, the "other" game during the Super Bowl will be popular forever.
"I like to watch the game and the commercials are always an extra bonus for me," Carney said.
