Prince did a good job last night and I’m qualified to say that given that my living room was quieter at halftime than any other moment of the night last night. Of course my halftime started about 20 minutes after everyone else’s halftime did courtesy of the DVR, but Prince put on a heck of a show. It was surprising to say the least.
“Everybody wants to be in marketing.” Leave it up to GoDaddy.com to dispel the myths laid into the fabric of our society by Gilbert. That is what happens in marketing meetings, if you work for American Apparel. Seriously I think GoDaddy does a fairly decent job. They know local small business decision makers that need their services are predominately male and not that sophisticated. So why not have a wet t-shirt contest in your Super Bowl ad?!
Conversely I believe SalesGenie.com to be run by a bunch of former cable ad sales executives. The only thing this commercial communicated to me was that this is a sales company run by sales junkies and they believe they have the answer to help Miss Millie drive sales for her dry cleaners. Slick commercial. Slick messaging. It was Tutweiler on a larger scale, but without the humor. These guys need a marketing person.
I continue to love what Career Builder is doing with their ads, although for people like me their site stinks. I have a couple of different agents set up at Career Builder and each one of them continues to send me entry level, administrative, local retail, and insurance salesmen jobs. They may want to save some of that Super Bowl money next year and work some relevancy into their technology.
Overall I thought the commercials for the Super Bowl pretty much sucked this year and it’s the ad community’s own fault. Advertising in this event has risen to cultural phenomena status courtesy of the media. This year it was clear to me that very few advertisers were willing to spend money on the creative as their media dollars continue to shift out of traditional vehicles. I don’t think that a commercial free Super Bowl is out of reason within the next ten years.
There were a couple others to note: Betting the farm on the slick sales pitch of “30% of the viewing audience is female” Revlon threw in the Sheryl Crow ad. Even the ladies in my house were in shock to see that. I truly enjoyed the Garmin spot with the map monster especially because “Cookeville” was stamped across his forehead (future blog coming on that for sure). GM/Chevy did a good job with their creative. However, they could have really hit a homerun if they would have set up some long-form in VOD online and/or on the cable platform. And “Coke Side of Life” was nice but I’m not missing the 200 calories per soda by not drinking it.
Oh, there was a game?
Yes we all know Peyton was destined for greatness over a decade ago. He’s a fighter, works hard, and is frugal with preparation. So it was no surprise to those who are not adamant Bears fans, that Manning picked apart his opposition last night. Of course he had some help. I thought Dominic Rhodes made a good run at MVP. Had it not been for his rushing down the stretch the Bears would have had more chances. The rookie Addai wasn’t so bad either. The short passing routes he caught the ball out of were the key to carving up the Bears. The Colts defense played well enough to allow Grossman to be himself. The only surprise to me was the Bears defensively were intimidated by Manning, Harrison, and Wayne. So afraid were they to allow these guys to have a huge game, they completely overlooked the rest of the offense.
As I mentioned earlier, halftime was the quietest time of the evening for us for we had guests. Now, I love these guys. They are nice people. They are fun to be around. But they don’t love football like me. For me to pause the game while we ate was a sin worthy of immediate damnation. For me not to eat before kickoff was deserving of a lightning strike from above. To put it into perspective, I had to read about the fine details of the game this morning. I didn’t even see the ending of the game because the DVR doesn’t play over the next program unless it is recording (I paused and then played).
So if any of our guests are reading this post, you’re welcome to come hang out and throw down at any time. However we intend to lock the doors and pretend we’re not home the next time there’s football on. The sounds of football and alcohol consumption coming from within the house will just be a recorded ploy to keep crooks away. PS: I love you.
Now to the food: It did turn out pretty good. As a friend told me recently, “hey we’re getting’ so good at this all other food is second tier.” It turned out to be a Mexican theme although that was not the intention. I couldn’t sway Tracey from the quesadilla request, so I fixed those and Tracey did the “make your own burrito bar.” The burrito bar idea and recipes come from Rachel Ray and it’s one we recommend. Note that in the chicken and sausage mix, make sure you get really good chorizo. Don’t go with any of the chicken applewood smoked, etc. Get the full fledged pork chorizo. It does make a difference.
I did a beef and a chicken quesadilla. It’s better to make these and eat hot. I don’t marinade the meat but instead use a combination of olive oil, kosher salt and fresh ground pepper, chipotle pepper, cumin, garlic powder, and a little oregano. Last night I used a pepper infused olive oil, a sirloin steak, and boneless chicken thighs. If you let the meat sit in the fridge with the seasonings for a couple of hours it picks up the flavor. It also will form a nice crust on the grill. Yes I did grill with wind chill in the teens. Is there anything better?!
Quesadillas are easy to make. You just throw your ingredients into a tortilla and griddle away. I like to roast my veggies on the grill with the meat and thus used roasted red pepper, onion, and a chili pepper with 2% jack and colby cheese in combination with the meat as my filling. My secret is a hot cast iron skillet with just a hint of vegetable or corn oil to toast the quesadilla after it is filled. Serve immediately.
The item I received the most compliments on last night was my pico. I just threw this together last minute for Tracey’s burritos. I was roasting some corn for a salad and thought “gee why don’t I roast some more veggies for pico?” Onto the grill went several roma tomatoes, and a jalapeño. The pico consisted of those items with some cilantro, red onion, juice from a lime, a touch of olive oil, a splash of tequila, and salt and pepper to taste. I just kept adding things together until I found the taste and consistency I was looking for. Sometimes I even surprise myself.
In terms of beverages I packed an assortment of beer in the cooler outside of which I never brought in last night. I hope the cooler did a good job of keeping the cold out as much as it does keeping it in. Tracey wanted margaritas. Our preferred tequila is Cabo Wabo’s Reposado and we combo that with Grand Marnier for our margaritas. I stuck to beer. Tracey worked on the margaritas. Go figure.
Not at all a bad event overall. The food was good and we did enjoy the company despite the lack of attentiveness on the game. But if this is how non-fans of football watch the Super Bowl, I know I don’t want to be one of them. Talk, eat, talk, eat, talk, watch the halftime show, talk, go home. Uh-uh. Not for me. I can’t wait for September.
