By Sergio Millas

Last night Jake Schultz and I attended the Orange County Ad Federation’s 2013 Super Bowl commercial review that took place at JT Schmids in Anaheim, CA. As expected this was a great event. We both had a great time and were excited to talk about the Super Bowl, the ads and sports marketing with  fellow industry professionals.

For those of you who don’t know, the Orange County Ad Federation is  a chapter of the American Advertising Federation (AAF), and  is the largest professional organization dedicated to the advertising business in Orange County. The group has over 300 members that include ad agencies, broadcast production houses, printing companies, interactive shops, individuals from the client side and many more.

If you are not currently part of the group, we highly suggest you join. We have just recently been attending their events and have already met some great people. Last night we had the opportunity to meet the President of the group Lisa Delaney as well as the Executive Director Sandy King- both wonderful ladies who are energetic and passionate about the group and about advertising. We love these kinds of people.

The night consisted of eating great food, networking and watching each commercial one by one.  There was a very knowledgeable  panel of advertising experts breaking down what they liked and didn’t like about each. What we enjoyed about the panel was the fact that each had their own unique background and perspective and were very knowledgeable about  the ins and outs of each spot.  This night was not only a lot of fun, but very educational as well. We will definitely be in attendance to the event next year.

In the spirit of Super Bowl commercial reviews, we broke down some of our favorite commercials from the Super Bowl and outlined what we liked about them.

There were four commercials that stood out to us- Audi’s “Prom”, Taco Bell’s “Viva Young”, GoDaddy’s “Perfect Match” and Oreo’s “Whisper Fight”. You can see all of these commercials below.

We liked Audi “Prom” because the ad did such a good job of associating the car with feeling good about yourself and bravery. The slogan was, for that matter, “Bravery. It’s what defines us.”  We think the commercial was very effective in delivering that message.

We liked Taco Bell’s “Viva Young” for two reasons. First of all we liked the spot because of the very nature of the ad- who doesn’t like seeing older folks running around getting wild? We knew that the commercial would cause a stir- exactly what they were trying to do.  Secondly, we liked the spot because the music to the spot was by the band Fun who just came off an astronomically successful year winning multiple Grammy’s. They took the song “We Are Young” (a wildly successful song in 2012) and translated it into Spanish which I think made for a good twist that would get people talking. By getting Fun. involved it engaged their fan base which we thought was brilliant.

We liked GoDaddy’s “Perfect Match” because we knew that people would be talking about the ad for months to come. They were trying to stir up some controversy- mission accomplished. They have been good at this in the past and were very effective this year.

Finally, although we thought that Oreo’s “Whisper Fight” went on a bit too long what we did like was the social media call to action at the end of the spot. The commercial was all about the ever-lasting debate of what part of Oreo cookies is better- the cream or cookie. On the last frame of the spot, they very intelligently prominently featured the text, “Something we can all disagree on: Choose your side on Instagram @Oreo” which was wildly successful. Doing this helped build Oreo’s social platform reach- something that I was surprised we didn’t see out of many of the other ads. If your going to spend $4 million on an ad, it is my opinion that there should be some sort of social media engagement involved. You can read more about the impact of Oreo’s Super Bowl commercial here.

We want to thank the Orange County Ad Federation for putting on a great event. The next event we will be attending of theirs is the 2013 OC Addy Awards, which promises to also be a great event.