From Orwellian nightmares to singing sockpuppets, a look back at the tech ads that made waves on Super Bowl Sunday
The tech industry’s most famous Super Bowl ads: From Orwellian nightmares to singing sockpuppets, a look back at the tech ads that made waves on Super Bowl Sunday
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E*Trade’s “Monkey” (2000)The premise is devastatingly simple: Two men and a monkey do goofy stuff in front of a camera and it costs E*Trade $2 million to air because it’s going on during the Super Bowl. The message: investing your money in E*Trade is a good idea despite the fact that E*Trade specializes in wasting money. Effectiveness: 2 out of 5. Seeing how well the stock market has done over the past year, that dancing monkey looks like an absolute bargain by comparison. | |
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Pets.com’s puppet sings us a tuneBack when everyone thought that dot-com stock prices would keep going up forever, Pets.com unleashed this dog of an ad of its infamously annoying sock puppet barking out Chicago’s “If You Leave Me Now” in a hideously off-key howl. Effectiveness: 1 out of 5. Woof. The Pets.com puppet’s crooning couldn’t save its parent company from permanently rolling over and playing dead less than a year later. | |
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GoDaddy.com’s “Wardrobe Malfunction” (2005)Riffing off of Janet Jackson’s notorious “wardrobe malfunction” during the previous Super Bowl’s halftime show, this ad featured large-chested professional wrestler Candice Michelle dancing around and shaking her booty in front of Congress. Other than annoying prudes, this ad had seemingly little point. Effectiveness: 1 out of 5 Can anyone figure out what GoDaddy.com actually does? | |
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CareerBuilder.com’s “Monkeys” (2006)Since one monkey worked so well for E*Trade six years earlier, CareerBuilder.com decided to employ several monkeys to act as a metaphor for just how awful working at an office job can be. In reality, of course, being stuffed into a building full of monkeys would be a welcome diversion for the vast majority of workers in the United States. Effectiveness: 4 out of 5 The monkey lighting a cigar with money is just too awesome. | |
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Did we miss anything?What are your favorite Super Bowl tech ads? Did we miss any of your old favorites? Let us know in the comments! WANT MORE? Podcast: Securing Super Bowl XLIII Podcast: Super Bowl unwired Technology’s 10 most annoying fictional characters Japan’s 10 funniest tech-related ads Sport’s networkiest moments |
