Post Super Bowl: Ads, ads and more ads

It’s tempting, as a media reporter, to become incredibly cynical as the Super Bowl rolls around each February. Endless pitches, endless studies, endless clips sent by public relations departments in the days leading up the the game.

Here’s the thing though: Advertisers aren’t dummies. The $3 million they shell out for Super Bowl ads often pays off. Just think of all the stories that ran before the game in your local newspaper or on your local TV newscast (or here at Reuters.com). Or consider the party you attended yesterday — most people probably stayed in front of the TV set during timeouts. Hear much talk about Super Bowl ads today around the water cooler? Thought so.

A ton of polls are out today rating the best and worst Super Bowl commercials. Snickers and Doritos seem to be faring well.  Focus on the Family? Ahhh, that ad didn’t seem to knock anybody’s socks off. Then again, it didn’t have to. Do a Google News search and look at how much was written about the group’s advertisement long before it aired. That’s good marketing.

Like anything creative, advertising is a highly subjective. We had people over to watch the game — and the spots that our group liked can’t be found near the top of most polls (for the record, Cars.com, Monster.com and Dove Men + Care were popular in our living room). Beyond our little group, I had one advertising expert tell me it was the best group of advertisements he’d seen in years; another was highly unimpressed by the lot of them.

Can Toyota Digg its way out of recall crisis?

This story by Thomas Mucha originally appeared in GlobalPost.

As Toyota careened from one recall crisis to the next, the contrast was almost funny.

In one corner, we had pure Kabuki theater — a highly-stylized corporate drama playing out on the world stage.

Gmail Creator says he is not working on new email platform

With nearly 400 million users, Facebook is increasingly challenging the traditional Web overlords like Google and Yahoo on all fronts.

So the reports on Friday that Facebook was developing its own Web-based email, supposedly referred to internally as a “Gmail killer” raised a lot of eyebrows – not the least because Paul Buchheit, the former Google engineer who created Gmail, now works at Facebook (Facebook acquired Bucheit’s social networking startup FriendFeed last year).

But if there’s a Facebook email product in the works, Buchheit isn’t working on it.

In a post on to his FriendFeed account on Friday, Buchheit said, “No, I am not working on anything related to email,” adding that he did not plan to either.

Saints over Colts, says EA’s “Madden”

If Electronic Arts’ recent track record on Super Bowl predictions is any guide, it looks like New Orleans may well bring home the Lombardi Trophy on Sunday.

EA ran a simulation of the Super Bowl XLIV matchup through its popular “Madden NFL 10” game on the Xbox 360, and the Saints edged the Indianapolis Colts 35-31.

A little taste of play-by-play from the world of make-believe sports:

“With the game hanging in the balance, Drew Brees hits David Thomas for an 11-yard touchdown and the game winning score. Drew Brees takes home MVP honors as the Saints earn their first Super Bowl Championship title in the franchise’s 46 year history.”

Microsoft’s Mehdi sees Bing in the black

Microsoft’s Bing search engine hasn’t put a dent in Google’s mastery of the market yet, but executive Yusuf Mehdi thinks it could do so soon, once the search ad partnership with Yahoo is completed.

Bing might even make some money eventually, he suggested in an interview today, once advertisers start to see it as a creditable alternative to Google.

But how long does it have to achieve those goals? Microsoft has lost more than $5 billion in its online business in the last four years. The company keeps saying it is a long-term project, but surely it has to see results soon.

Mehdi’s answer to that question in the clip below, and his thoughts on the delayed relaunch of the MSN portal,  from an interview at Bing’s headquarters in Bellevue, Washington today.

Timeline: iPad joins list of Apple product milestones

The iPad is just the latest in decades of big milestones and product introductions for Apple and its CEO Steve Jobs.

Here’s a quick list:

1976 High school buddies, and dropouts, Steven Wozniak and Steven Jobs found Apple Computer. Their first product, Apple I, built in circuit board form, debuts at “the Homebrew Computer Club” in Palo Alto, California, to little fanfare.

1977 The company unveils the Apple II, perhaps the first personal computer in a plastic case with color graphics. It is a big hit.

from Reuters Soccer Blog:

Wayne Rooney is flying right at you!

Beer and football go together like, well, beer and anything else, but add in a pair of plastic stereoscopic spectacles plus the inevitability of someone taking a camera phone picture of you looking ridiculous and I can see the combination wearing a bit thin.

Still, I'm sure there'll be plenty of people happy to give it a try on Sunday when the Premier League goes all Avatar on us.

Pubs in nine British cities, kitted out with expensive new TVs and all manner of electronic jiggery-pokery, will be screening the Arsenal v Manchester United game in 3D. So before the ink is even dry on that HD contract you signed over Christmas, there's a chance for a peak at what broadcasters must be praying will be The Next Big Thing.

How do you like the idea?

No-nonsense, and no names, at Apple iPad event

Apple has a reputation for developing hit products.

But the company also has a rep for maintaining an iron grip on its image and its message. Wednesday’s launch of the iPad, a product whose details have been closely guarded by Apple for months ahead of the launch, showed Apple’s operation at its best.

To the surprise of many, Apple CEO Steve Jobs turned up at the demo room after the main event and appeared to be casually hobnobbing with Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg.

But the scene was hardly the impromptu, open conversation it appeared.

Leftover Apple…

There were plenty of interesting little nuggets sprinkled throughout Apple’s iPad extravaganza Wednesday, some of which may have gotten lost in the headlines:

Apple’s iPad in Jobs’ words

In case you weren’t among the members of the fourth-estate lucky enough to get an invitation to Apple’s highly-anticipated unveiling of the iPad on Wednesday, here are some of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’ key comments about the new device and its importance to the company:

“Apple is a mobile devices company. That’s what we do.”

“When you feel all this power, and this much fun, and the internet in your hands, you’ll never want to go back.”

Reuters