Ouch! Backlash for Vizio Super Bowl ad
February 8th, 2010, 11:31 am · 32 Comments · posted by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
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| Did you get Vizio’s Super Bowl 2010 ad? Comment |
It was hard to avoid Vizio at the Super Bowl yesterday. The Irvine HDTV company was obviously a major sponsor of the football game with its sponsorship of the pre-game show, the field camera and several commercials.
But the big Super Bowl spot starring musician Beyonce failed to resonate with many critics, though it definitely wasn’t the worst of the bunch.
Vizio hired Wally Pfister, the cinematographer for “The Dark Knight” and “Batman Begins” to create a commercial for its new VIA TVs, short for Vizio Internet Apps TVs.
The spot shows a mechanical arm handpicking familiar Internet “content” — from the Twitter bird to the Flickr logo to the Internet celebrities like the overweight guy lip synching “Numa Numa,” Youtube Tay Zonday singing “Chocolate Rain” the Dramatic Beaver and others.
It’s a commercial you’ll need to watch a few times to catch all the pop-Internet references. And it may take awhile for it to make sense — ahh Internet on a TV. Clunky, yes. Vizio could have brought it all home with a family sitting in their living room viewing the Web content on their big-screen TV.
Internet critics were harsh. One site called it “somewhat disturbing.” The Wall Street Journal’s Peter Kafka titled his review, “How to Cram Most of the Web Into One Super Bowl Ad–And Not Sell TVs” plus four words: “Swing and a miss.”
Entertainment weekly also criticized Vizio for failing to get its point across — Internet on demand on a TV – and used words like “old memes” and obscure” to describe the ad.
But not everyone agreed. USA Today’s Ad meter ranked the Vizio ad at No. 39 out of the 63 commercials. One contributor for the Examiner.com ranked it her favorite ad for the whole game, calling it “cool because the TV just looked so high tech and the tv of the future.”
And maybe people really did get it. As Television Without Pity points out: “Outdated Chocolate Rain reference aside, this Vizio internet apps commercial was a mural of all the greatest things the internet has to offer, all crammed onto a TV. I can have zombies, David After the Dentist and Beyonce on the same thing I use to watch The Bachelor? Sold. Great pitch.”
Noted: The Vizio VIA TV isn’t a TV that lets you surf the Web. It only offers Internet apps so you can view specific online content. The TV itself was supposed to go on sale last summer but was delayed. The company allowed a certain group of consumers buy the TV at a discount in late 2009. The TVs are now available online.
Watch all of the Super Bowl 2010 commercials at Hulu.com. Also, rate the ads over at USA Today HERE.
More non-game Super Bowl coverage:
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Looks like a cool TV and the remote has a full QWERTY keyboard and the set is WiFi compatible….but….Can you sit back and search the internet with this TV? Or are these all fee based sites? Cnet said that early versions lacked a browser.
Anyone have any idea? Thanks!
No, you can’t search the Internet. The Vizio TV will offer a bunch of ‘apps’ that send Web videos/content to the TV. It’s a walled Internet garden.
I thought the ad was awesome! Who knows if the TV will be any good, but that ad was fun to watch and true to form with other Superbowl “pop culture art” type ads. I mean, how do any of those commercials ACTUALLY sell what they’re about? They’re selling an image…right?
I understood it and it was pretty nice. Makes me want to go buy..
OK, so I came into the room to see a woodchuck/groundhog getting grabbed and dropped down a hole. I’m thinking “What the heck was that all about?” Thanks for posting the commercial so I could see the whole thing.
Back on track – I get it, but I don’t think most people would. It’s moving too fast for people to figure out and they probably haven’t seen data center robots in action. BUT… after seeing it a couple times, they may start to make the connection. I think Vizio puts out a great product (I have a 50″ plasma), but they could have done a little better job tying it all together for people – maybe putting a handful of the “selected” items up on screen at the end.
My question – once in the garden, will you be able to bounce from one downloaded content to another? Think of battling kids grabbing the remote.
Thanks.
I haven’t played with the new TV myself but if I remember correctly, the apps hover as a line at the bottom of the TV screen. You’ll be able to “bounce” between apps by selecting each one. Whether the TV can multi-task and simultaneously keep two or more apps up (so you can Tweet and listen to Pandora’s Internet radio), I’m unsure.
It’s not a woodchuck or a ground hog. It is a beaver.
i think it was an effective ad. Knowing that people are using their computer more for video and content rather than tv. You do want people to know that the same experience can be had on the old tv. This makes tv more appealing and im sure it will help sell more vizio tvs.
It was a stupid commercial.
Thanks Tamara!
oh wow, you mean they placed internet in the tv…wow, my 36 LCD has a cheap CP attached that has a wifi..I can surf the net once I make the switch over to input 3-hdmi…all for under 250.00
Can it beat my 46″ that can drive and surf the web at the same time.. all for under 2 bucks?!?
The Vizio ad was fantastic. We don’t need more mindless slapstick on tv. We need ads which communicate by expanding our view of the world around us. Vizio’s ad definitely achieved that.
It’s obvious who works at Vizio. Haha.
Whatsa Vizio….Oh Right they sell’em at Walmart
and costco too?
i guess the director is a weezer fan
wow you so called “critics” are very very very stupid i got what vizio was peddling in the first 5 seconds of the commercial, and it was plain as day by the very end
F.A.I.L.
The add is pretty effective with people who have some sence of the idea they were trying to convey. Whatt I don’t understand is why there aren’t more people who already have a pc connected to their Flat screen. I (as the person who posted above) have one. I bought mine for about $450 with 650 gigs of memory and it came with an HDMI port so to directly link to the TV with a single cord. Coupled with a 42″ and a bluetooth keyboard mouse set-up there’s no limitation as to what you can do online. Also as the guy above said, you can get set up for much cheaper then I did. This TV is really only for the technologiically illiterate. Just remember that the same concept applies for All in one anything…. thery’re usually cheaper as a package but you always get more for your money buying separate units.
Had no clue what they were selling, and the multiple images and references smacked of effort.
Since this is a commercial for a local company, I suggest there’s bias towards the positive in some of the comments here. I would trust an WSJ reviewer instead.
No idea what a Vizio is, what they were selling. An idiotic commercial, couldnt care less for one more gadget.
but you cared enough to post about it….tsk tsk
why buy that tv when a computer can do what it can and more. think about it the tv is a waste of money. But people will buy it anyway won’t they…… sigh.
I don’t care about their crappy TV’s…their customer service people suck so they’re out even if they had a Superbowl ad that I can’t remember…
The ad was so-so, but I’m quite happy with my Vizio and Windows 7 Media Center / Boxee / Hulu / Ninjavideo.net / ch131.com / hotfiles / rs / bitcomet / HTPC.
All the TV I need and more.
It was noticeable enougn that the OCR wrote an article about it!
Lets put it this way, it might be easier to understand!!!
VIZIO is like a huge Iphone in your living room.. Watch tv and get aps to surf and never get off your bumm… that’s what I got out of it…..
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I do have to say it was very creative!
They should put more money into the quality of their TV’s not stupid ads on TV. I have a 32 inch door stop right now. It was only 2 years old. I’ll never buy another one.
Leave it to the OC register to make something out of nothing at all.
I for one was far more offended by Audi’s Super Bowl adds. But I guess Environmental Police setting up warrantless checkpoints on our highways to catch anti-greeners isn’t a big deal?
Of the many people I know who work at Vizio, none of them own their employer’s product. The quality is very poor.
Visit a Costco on any given saturday and sunday and see how many vizios are being returned. These TVs have substandard build quality and the picture does not compare to other TVs.