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NY Times article on how the tone of this year's Superbowl ads were more negative than the past. 
-- Carl

All of the Super Bowl TV commercials can be viewed at this web site. Coca Cola’s "Vice" commercial is a parody of the video game Grand Theft Auto. The commercial starts out with a violent car chase and the character goes through different scenarios that at first begin with a violent intention but then end up being benevolent.  One example is where the main character violently pulls a driver out of a car as if he is going to start a fight but then surprisingly hands him a coke bottle. They then have a toast with their coke bottles and have a sip.  Nice twist, however the coloring of the whole commercial is very dark, with repeated ironical acts of benevolence from our normally violent minded character. This is ABSOLUTEY a far cry from the harmonious "I'd like to teach the world to sing" Coke commercial.

The next examples are the Career Builder dot com commercials set in a jungle like atmosphere.  All of them showed white collar people in a jungle setting that gave you the feeling that it was untamed, unsafe, and arduous. The very first one that showed up was Entitled "Jungle" where the office workers were fleeing from arrows coming in on them.  They begin a stampede where they follow one another until the final scene where the “herd” runs directly off a cliff into a ravine.  Chilling depiction of what ultimately happens to the herd.

Finally the ultimate slap to the American worker is the GM "Robot Arm" commercial. The scenes show a yellow colored robot arm on a GM assembly line that inadvertently drops a screw during the assembly of a vehicle. It shows the Robot being shunned by the other robots and then getting laid off from GM.  Next they show it trying odd jobs that included holding up 'condos for sale' signs in front of condos to holding up the speaker at the fast food drive up. Finally they show the robot at the edge of the bridge ready to jump into the river when suddenly a pack of GM cars come to talk him off the ledge and save the day. 
--Gene

According to a report from NPR's Morning Edition on February 5, researchers at UCLA were actually monitoring viewers’ brain activity during the Super Bowl. “In many cases, the ads produced feelings of anxiety and fear,” says the report. “Overall, researchers concluded that most of the ads made people take notice — but didn't necessarily make them feel good.” 

What's going on? Why are maimings, sexual escapades at the cash register and lots and lots of people doing stupid things to themselves helping firms market their wares.  We covered the phenomenon here on April 21 when a “jarring VW ad was on the air.”  As we said at that time, the rising frequency of bad things happening to people in commercials actually dates back to 2000. That's when we first started to see advertisers pitching their products around a steady stream of unfortunate events.  Apparently when people are feeling more depressed or angry, they will buy products that they associate with those emotions. The picture above is a still photo of an ad for Pepsi's Sierra Mist Lemon-Lime soda.  Marketers sense the change and they are gearing their pitches to appeal to these emotions. If this wasn’t true and happening at a more profound level, there is no way these companies would investing $2.6 million to project these celebrations of violence and mayhem to the largest mass audience in existance for 30 seconds during the Super Bowl.