ShareThisI like bawdy humor, so I'm surprised at my reaction to some of Sunday's racier Super Bowl ads.
I thought they were out of line.
Start with one by godaddy.com, which registers domain names and helps with Web design. The ad showed three 20-something guys staring at a computer with one saying, "Now that I'm online, I can make anything happen." The screen then showed Danika Patrick, an attractive woman race-car driver. She was in a robe saying, "Suddenly I have the urge to take another shower." The three were about to drool as she dropped the robe. The camera showed her from her naked shoulders up. She said, "This is my fifth shower today."
First of all, I don't completely get it, but I think the point is that if you use godaddy.com, you can create great things on the Web.
It's nothing new to use sex to sell your product. Clearly, Patrick wasn't offended by it. We are all familiar with beer ads with provocative themes.
But this one was just creepy, with these guys coming off as peeping Toms as they manipulated and stared bug-eyed at a presumably nude celebrity.
It might not have bothered me as much had the ad appeared on some adult show. But this was the Super Bowl, with tens of millions of kids watching. Do they really need to be force-fed images of guys making a woman repeatedly shower while they drool?
Then came another uncomfortable ad by a flower-delivery service called Teleflora. It featured a woman in an office opening a delivered box full of wilted flowers. The message was that flowers would be fresher and better if sent through Teleflora. First of all, are there really people who ship flowers by UPS? Any guy who does so is a loser. But, assumedly, the ad's point was that if a woman gets flowers shipped in a box, she's the loser.
In the ad, the flowers came alive. As her co-workers looked on, the flowers told her, "Look at the mug on you. ... That's why he only sent a box of flowers. Go home to your romance novels and your fat smelly cat." Um, OK. That's a little rude, but the offensive part was what the flowers said next:
"No one wants to see you naked."
Do parents really want their 10-year-old kids having to hear that? It's weird.
Then came one more godaddy.com gem. It was framed around a Senate-type hearing looking into "enhancement" -- in the way similar hearings looked into steroids. I think their point was that you should use godaddy.com to "enhance" your Web site. But they conveyed it first with a woman with small cleavage telling the panel that she had not been enhanced, then a woman with bigger cleavage denying she'd been enhanced followed by a very buxom woman with a low-cut shirt saying, "Enhanced?" She grabbed her shirt to pull it down, adding, "I'll show you enhanced."
Like almost every guy in America, I sometimes get e-mails from friends with far more explicit images. I don't mind them. I'm a male.
But this isn't private mail -- this is the Super Bowl. And though some might rightly say bikini ads are more revealing, my problem here is with the ad's theme. It was about a woman first commenting on her assets, then starting to rip her shirt off in a Girls-Gone-Wild moment.
Only five years ago, there was a big Super Bowl mess when Justin Timberlake ended a halftime song by ripping the fabric off one side of Janet Jackson's chest. She still had on a large, strategically placed piece of star jewelry. Yet the FCC tried to fine CBS a half million dollars. It was a national scandal.
If you ask me, Sunday's godadday.com "enhanced" ad was worse. Both situations flaunted the same anatomy, but one did so for one second, while godaddy.com did so for a half minute. This time, though -- no scandal.
As far as Janet Jackson, I thought it was nonsense for the FCC to fine CBS. That was overboard. If the FCC tried to fine godaddy.com, I'd probably write a column saying that would be overboard, too. It's not like these moments corrupted our culture.
All I'm saying is this was not HBO, it was the Super Bowl, with families watching.
I know companies need to get attention for their $3 million ads.
But there's a point, especially if you choose the wrong audience, where risque humor simply becomes leering and lecherous.
Those ads lacked class.
(mpatinkin(at)projo.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Must credit The Providence JournalColumn
