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Superbowl XLV: An Advertiser's Dream
The Superbowl is known to be the primetime spot for advertisements. This year's Superbowl was the most watched television show of all time. With an audience like that, the advertisements have to be strong. Not only that but a single 30 second commercial can cost about $3 million. The following is an analysis of two commercials that aired during this year's Superbowl XLV: the "Miss Evelyn" Chevy Camaro ad and the "First Date" Pepsi Max ad.

**"Miss Evelyn"- Chevy Camaro Ad**
The Chevy Camaro advertising campaign came out with a bang during Super Bowl XLV. The "Miss Evelyn" Camaro commercial was an instant success becoming the most watched advertisement on television of all time, according to the Nielsen ratings. This advertising campaign was started to combat the commercials for Chevrolet’s rival’s Ford Mustang. It is the first advertising campaign for the Camaro in many years. Not only did this commercial air, but also as a part of the campaign they gave a Chevrolet Camaro to the Super Bowl MVP Aaron Rodgers. The Miss Evelyn commercial was created by the Goodby, Silverstein, and Partners advertising agency. The advertisement itself is an example of consumer advertising because the purpose of it is to sell the product to individual, personal use buyers and not other businesses. "An indirect action ad works over the long run to build a company’s image and increase consumer awareness." (Dominick, 2010). By this definition from //Dynamics of Mass Communication//, it can be classified as an indirect action ad that is trying to build a buzz for the Chevy Camaro. This campaign is selective demand advertising because they are trying to sell a media type="youtube" key="nwTJpDOcSCc" height="312" width="512" align="right" specific car, the Camaro, and not all Chevys. This is also a national advertising campaign not meant to sell a certain dealership but the entire company’s product.

The commercial itself is, in our opinion, well done. It has many aspects of a successful commercial. A summary of the commercial from Time describes it thoroughly:

“We open on "that desert" as two Chevy ad execs talk in voice-over about their great idea for a Camaro commercial. First, get a superhot chick to drive the car. Then have the Camaro go flying through a city, dodging hay bales. Hay bales? "She's in the city. I don't know why you'd have hay," says one. O.K., scratch the hay bales. How about a car chase? Sold. In the twist at the end, it turns out — surprise! — she's a schoolteacher.” (Sanburn, 2010).

From this summary and the fact that the commercial was played during the biggest sporting event of the year, the target audience could be assumed to be males who can drive and like muscle cars. I believe it is extremely effective in reaching this audience. It is a very original idea for a commercial showing what should be the archetypal car commercial. It did a great job of showing the car, having sex appeal, and putting a twist ending on an entertaining story in order to be the most effective ad it could be for a Superbowl time slot.

"First Date"- Pepsi Max Ad
The Pepsi Max “First Date” commercial had many mixed reactions during its premier. The commercial appeared during Super Bowl XLV. The ratings of this commercial were not too bad. Even though it did not place in the Best 2011 Super bowl commercial list, it ranked at 3.29 out of 5. The Pepsi Max campaign had high ratings when competing only with Doritos. People loved, liked, or disliked the commercial due to stereotypic views. Many men could take an offense in about this commercial. It gives the impression the men are one track minded and can only concentrate on one thing at a time.

In this commercial, there is a woman and a man on their “First Date” together. As for many men, the guy in the commercial is only able to focus on one thing. As the commercial goes on, the man continues to think of one thing, “I want to sleep with her.” Abruptly, his thinking is interrupt when the waiter places a Pepsi Max on the table. His thoughts change and he can now only think of the Pepsi Max.

media type="youtube" key="jtKobq14bZE" height="312" width="512" align="center" During the entire commercial, the two never speak aloud but there is a mental conversation between the two people. While he is only thinking about one thing at a time, the woman is thinking about a plethora of things during the conversation.

Women on the other hand are able think about multiple things at once. This is depicted in the commercial and can be considered as a stereotype against women. While the woman is thinking about several different things, this commercial portrays men as only being able to focus on one thing at a time. It could be said that this ad is trying to get to both men and women 18-35. The advertising of this commercial was by far consumer advertising which is trying to get individuals to buy Pepsi Company's product. This commercials purpose was to bring attention to Pepsi new product Pepsi Max which would make the ad a selective demand and an indirect action ad. Pepsi is a multimillion dollar corporation and it goal it to gets it consumers attention to sell their product. They did this fairly well with their new "First Date" commercial.

Compare/ Contrast
These two commercials are very similar in their goals. They are both national and consumer ads that reached many people during Superbowl XLV. They have similar target audiences. The Camaro commercial is definitely trying to reach just men while the Pepsi Max commercial is trying to reach men and women ages 18-35. The "Miss Evelyn" commercial used slightly different tactics to attract customers than did the Pepsi Max ad. It used sex appeal, a new, interesting idea, and action to sell the Camaro, while the "First Date" ad used comedy and gender stereotypes to try and sell its product. The Camaro ad used slight stereotyping by making Miss Evelyn a teacher which some people took offense to. People can see any kinds of problems like stereotype in commercials though, it just depends on the viewer. The //Dynamics of Mass Communication// book says that four aspects are taken into consideration while judging a commercial: reach, frequency, selectivity, efficiency. (Dominick, 2010). They both reached many customers, airing during the most watched television show of all time. The frequency of each remains to be seen, as they were only shown once during this Superbowl. Both commercials most definitely reached their audience but the efficiency could be a problem as each one cost close to $3 million. Regardless, these commercials both had all the aspects of a decent commercial: showing the product, entertaining the audience, and having the great stage of the Superbowl to air them.

**Works Cited**
Dominick, J. (2010). The Dynamics of Mass Communication. 11th Edition. New York: McGraw Hill.

Sanburn, J. (2010, February 07). //Chevy camaro, 'miss evelyn'//. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2046668_2046687_2046679,00.html