The faith-in-humanity-reducing USA Today Ad Meter declared its increasingly-suspect winners as chosen by a 282 person sampling of Californians and Virginians.

Hulu.com weighed in with their AdZone rankings, brought to us by Geico, and apparently they have a somewhat less shot-to-the-groin-friendly demographic.

On Sunday night, Fox presented Superbowl XLV to an audience estimated at over 110 million people, making it the single most-watched event in TV history.  Which helps explain both the $100,000/second pricetag for spots during the broadcast and the Monday morning creative directing by seemingly everyone.  Judging Superbowl ads has become our wintry national pastime.

One theme that came up just slightly less often than the reliable chestnut “the work just wasn’t as good this year” was the assertion that VW’s charming Star Wars-themed Passat ad “The Force” cheated. A number of blogs and commenters took issue with their decision to release that Superbowl Ad to YouTube last Wednesday, a full four days before the game itself.  The consensus seems to be that by racking up over fourteen million views before gametime, the ad somehow disqualified itself as a bona fide Superbowl ad.

Excuse me?

Marketing isn’t professional boxing.  There are no Marquess of Queensberry Rules insuring a level field of play.  We don’t want level playing fields. Our job is and has always been, to bend the rules, to do the unexpected, to earn favor and attention by innovating with our creative, strategic and media ideas.  In a socially-driven culture, building up a big head of steam for your contender isn’t cheating, it’s really, really smart.  Despite being hacktastic, Doritos’ “Crash the Superbowl” grows more successful every year in terms of entries and pre-game voting, to the point where Pepsi Max joined that crotch-whacking fray this year.

Aside from integrity and decency, there are no rules. Today, the biggest rewards await any brand clever enough to innovate how they weave together personal and broadcast networks in new and surprising ways.

Amidst a surplus of clutter and a deficit of attention, gaming the system is today’s ad game.

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By Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79

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I read the article with particular interest because of a note my friend Paul Meyer sent me yesterday on this very subject.  Paul’s a diehard Jayhawks fan, and their administration looks ready to step in and fire their football coach, Mark Mangino. Paul didn’t really say where he came down on the issue of the coach’s tenure, but he did point out something disturbing he noticed on a story on ESPN.com.  By the time he quit skimming it yesterday, the comments count had topped 1330, and almost every one of them made some sort of fat joke.  While Coach Mangino is a plus-sized individual who dwarfs even Notre Dame’s Charlie Weis, the fact remains his job is in jeopardy not for his physical appearance but rather his won-loss record.  What no doubt started as a bit of snarky smack talk online quickly devolved into ugly personal attacks that can only be classified as vicious and mean.

In this kind of environment, when anonymity can spur otherwise decent people down to something as ugly as character assassination, how can we maintain any semblance of civility?  How can we expect those with an agenda to follow some sort of higher-minded Marquess of Queensberry rules and avoid the partisan mud-slinging inanity that has so polluted the aisles of Congress?  How can we protect brands from competitors with less ethical standards?

In the end, the answer will probably rely on even more technological advancement as a means to out those who abuse the best aspects of Web 2.0.  Anonymity has a legitimate role online, but so does accountability.  In a Wiki-ed world, let’s hope for a bit more wisdom from crowds.

By Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79

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