Nostalgia Rules!

Imagine, a Super Bowl where the game was way better than the ads. We watched the game with a bunch of Boomers, and for the most part all agreed: lots of ads were seemingly targeted to (and probably created by) 28-year old guys. You’d think they would be a real niche audience, given that Nielson estimates 106.5 million people tuned into this year’s game.

Boomers respond to nostalgia, which is probably why our Boomer viewer sample loved the Flo TV ad that recapped the entire history of television in 30 seconds. We were also big fans of the Google Paris ad, which came in second to Doritos’ House Rules in the Nielson Ad Buzz poll. While we were all glad to see the Budweiser Clydesdales, the spot seemed a little derivative, like we’d seen it all before with a different animal. The Letterman/Leno/Winfrey ad was a real hoot – our first reaction was “Is this real?” (15-second spots go by a little fast for Boomer brains!)

There were some dubious coincidences: what’s with all the people preening about in their underwear? The research we’ve done at Gen-Sights shows that Boomers are not only turned off by the ads they find crude, but turn off to the sponsor, as well — while we suspect the marketing people at Dockers and Career Builders.com weren’t really trying to target Boomers anyway, they probably should, given that Boomers do wear pants and don’t seem inclined to completely abandon the workforce anytime soon.

And how funny was it that the over-hyped Focus on Family ad, which ended with the mother of University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow being tackled on-camera, was preceded by a Snickers spot where the very same thing happened to comedienne Betty White? (Both spots rated a thumbs down from us, though the Snickers ad scored the most votes in this year's Adbowl, an online voting contest.)

You have to admit, the half time show featuring The Who was a true trip down memory lane for Boomers. And who, except those from the Hoosier state, wasn’t happy to see the long-beleaguered Saints (Ain’ts no more!) finally go marching in?

- posted by Lynn Schweikart