The Best Super Bowl Ad that Didn’t Air: Cobra Special Forces

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6wFpovHtnc

We’ve all seen the “best and worst” picks of Super Bowl ads by now, if we didn’t watch them live during the big game. Incidentally, this is the year I learned it’s actually illegal to say “Super Bowl” in a Super Bowl commercial because its copyrighted. You’d think paying millions to air a thirty second spot would earn them the right, but no.

Anyway, this is one short ad that did not air during the evening. It’s a stealth ad for the new long-delayed GI Joe movie, which starts off looking like a National Guard/Marines ad, but ends up being for Cobra.

So, why didn’t it air? I can think of two reasons. The first was because maybe they thought it would be offensive to equate our own military recruitment ads with one advertising an army that is very much evil in the film. The second would be that probably 98% of those watching would have zero idea what the ad is for, which may be fine for a stealth internet viral marketing campaign, but not for a multi-million dollar Super Bowl spot. Err, sorry, I mean “the big game.”

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4 Comments

  1. huh, didn’t the two girls from two broke girls do that pole dancing thingy and the one said: we are doing this for the “super bowl”? – in their super bowl ad.

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