I knew that there would be some mention of Superbowl commercials in tonight’s brand management class. Eh… I always hear people making a big deal about watching the commercials, sometimes only the commercials, even going so far as foregoing the big game itself. I guess it’s obligatory for marketing people to be interested in these sorts of things.

I learned shortly after beginning formal marketing studies that there’s more to marketing than promotions. It’s important to understand your company, customers, competitors and distribution channels (the 4 Cs). Only then can you concentrate on the 4 Ps of the product, pricing, place and (then and only then) promotion. I keep finding that there are extensions to this marketing mix. Services marketing adds three additional pieces (people, process and physical evidence), while Web 2.0 marketing adds four more (personalization, participation, peer-to-peer and predictive modeling). Anyway, the point of the matter is that there is more to marketing than quirky commercials and slick ads. My interest in commercials is how well they fit into the overall scheme of an entire marketing plan.

That’s not to say that I wasn’t interested in watching this year’s Superbowl commercials at all. It’s just that I was much more interested in the game itself. A few of the commercials this year stood out. Probably the most noteworthy one in my mind was the Doritos commercial that involved the guy and the snowglobe that he said was a fortune-telling crystal ball:

It was really quirky, and the Doritos people usually come up with something good every year.

I also thought that it was an important statement that some of the commercials capitalized on the current state of the economy. The ones I remembered included Hyundai…

…and Cash4Gold…

It was also good seeing Ed McMahon back in the pitch business after his recent bout of medical and money problems.

I also had the opportunity to get stoked for a couple of the upcoming movies. Particularly Angels & Demons…

…and the movie remake of The Land of the Lost…

Normally I don’t go for remakes, but I go for almost anything with Will Ferrell in it.

I’m sure there were some other good ones, but those are the ones that I particularly remembered. Correction, those are the ones that I remembered that I viewed favorably. I also remembered my disappointment in this year’s GoDaddy commercials. I’m a staunch GoDaddy loyalist, so I would be one of the ones to turn in just to see their commercials. I’m sure that part of it is due to the desire to push the limits butting heads with standards and practices. Kind of like the punchline to the standards and practices discussion in the Gee Whiz episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force — standards and practices ensures that a really funny idea is turned into a totally lame or mediocre end-product. But GoDaddy’s come out with a few good ones that are on their website (and a few that didn’t make it).

For the rest of the best Superbowl commercials, you can check out YouTube (or any number of sites whose commentators are blathering on-and-on about silly commercials).

I was listening to my new favorite Internet talk and music program recently, Ghosts of the Republic. One of the guests on this show talked about individual sovereignty and the concept of artificial entities he referred to as a “straw man.” I’ve heard these words used in terms of a philosophical argument or position, but not in terms of a legal entity. So I googled the term in order to find out more information. I didn’t find anything that concretely solidified the concept in my mind, but I was able to find an interesting article that tied the concept of the straw man to one of my favorite movies that appears occasionally in conspiracy lore:  The Wizard of Oz.

I first experienced the idea of The Wizard of Oz having some level of secret meaning by another movie called Eyes Wide Shut. It’s a pretty popular movie among folks who are into conspiracies. It also happened to be directed by classic filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, which I guess helped its notoriety. After watching that movie, I was pretty puzzled with all these strange rainbow references, so I started researching further. This led me to find conspiracies about mind control and sex slavery and secret programs like Project Monarch and Project MKULTRA and their ties to The Wizard of Oz.

Movies like The Wizard of Oz are weird enough on their own. The secrets behind those movies are downright distressing. I could blame the sleepless nights on Google, but knowing the whole story isn’t so bad once you learn to settle down and deal with it. Since my first exposure to the world of conspiracies and film, I have decided that I will never take what a movie (or the world) was literally showing me at face value again.

The one constant that I found about part-time business students is that they are wiped out by the end of their workdays and before the start of classes. Unfortunately, business classes tend to greatly increase the lethargy experienced by all but the most hardened business gurus-to-be. Last night’s brand management class was no exception.

Our professor did include some really interesting videos at the end of the class that at least brought me back to life. The first one was a scene from the movie, A Beautiful Mind. It was meant to be an introduction to a discussion on game theory, in general, and on understanding competition, in specific.

Hmmm… Maybe Adam Smith wouldn’t have a good understanding of this type of situation, but that doesn’t mean that John Nash has a good grasp on it either. Remember, he ends up spending all of his time being nuts and doing math. The problem with this application of Nash’s equilibrium is that the women in his example could choose not to go with any of the guys. They all could be lesbians. Maybe they’re into guys, just not these particular guys. Unfortunately, most guy’s egos (especially when beer-enhanced) won’t let them fathom these possibilities. Thus, began John Nash’s decent into insanity. Nash’s friend was at least right on one thing when he said you can lead a girl to water. You can also make her drink, but this will earn you some jail time.

Not a lot of people were feeling A Beautiful Mind. Howver, everyone was totally into the next clip. In it Stephen Colbert offered his thoughts on Cingular changing their name to AT&T.

I forget what the exact context of this video was, but it drew a lot of laughter and woke the remainder of the class up. I mean, who doesn’t love Stephen Colbert? If watching Comedy Central made people smarter, Colbert would be the answer to educators everywhere. Just string together a bunch of videos from The Colbert Report that are united by a singular topic. I’m sure somebody’s done a study on humor and intelligence. Anyway Colbert has my vote over Nash as an educator. He’s got nice insight and good delivery. Nash, not so much, although I’ll give him kudos for being kooky in a really smart way.