Sunday, January 29, 2012

Teaser Ads for Super Bowl Commercials?

It is perhaps a telling note on the centrality of the Super Bowl in America that we are now getting teaser ads for Super Bowl commercials. Of course these ads are ridiculously expensive ($3m-$3.5m for 30 seconds), so it only makes sense that companies want to get as much PR as possible for their money. Still, this is a new one, even for extravagantly combining the web with television.

VW, after releasing the most successful commercial at last year's Super Bowl, now offers a teaser to their next commercial, since both are Star Wars themed. It's tracking at roughly 1 million views a day!



Plus, it appears Ferris Bueller is making a comeback. Stay tuned, soon it will not just be countless web sites running variations on the "Best Commercials from the Super Bowl" the next day, but countless web sites offering running variation on the "Best Super Bowl Commercial Teaser Ads."  Capitalism never rests. (And that's not always a good thing.)



Apologies to Momo's Musings for not posting this in our sports blog, but this seemed more culturally related.

Monday, January 23, 2012

The State of American Religion

RealClearReligion offers their "State of American Religion" by winnowing through the polls & trends, coming to some reasonable conclusions:

"We might best describe the state of American religion today as "robust but confusing." Relative youths are having a harder time navigating it than past generations. Pew tells us that "Among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion."


Check it out.

Wednesday, January 04, 2012

2011: The Year in Tweets

What better way to remember 2011 than to view Tweets that mattered?