Be there or be square.

When it comes to utilities, potential customers might not know they are searching for your brand or service. Therefore, it’s important for utility companies to market themselves effectively by optimizing a customer’s experience through the utility website.

Thinking about my favorite Super Bowl TV commercial is really an exercise in futility for someone like me. I make commercials for a living. That means I look at TV commercials the way a sommelier scrutinizes a glass of cabernet. I’m a bona-fide snob. That is, until that one Sunday in February that caps the NFL season. On that day, I’m like a 16-year old watching a Victoria’s Secret made-for-TV fashion show: falling in love over and over during those ample commercial breaks. Every Super Bowl features a lineup of wonderful commercial ideas. I’m continually amazed at the best work, and constantly questioning and critiquing commercials that are less than effective.

When asked to pen a blog about my favorite Super Bowl commercial, many immediately came to mind.

Puppy. Monkey. Baby. Puppy. Monkey. Baby. That’s the proper formula for an award-winning Super Bowl spot, right?

I’ve always had a weird sense of humor. When I was a kid, I developed a taste for absurd, surrealist humor that often led me to know the “Weird Al” version of a song better than the original.

What matters in an ad? Sometimes the end viewer of the marketing campaign will never know the true strategy.

I find myself drawn to Apple’s award-winning Super Bowl ad, 1984, not for the reasons you may think. Not because, as many people believe, it symbolizes a heroic revolt against tyranny or the celebration of individuality, or the empowerment of the common man, but because of the irony of the message in the context of today’s technology-driven culture.

Have you ever stopped and just listened? Listened to how much sound is around you? Perhaps take a moment right now. Stop what you’re doing, and just listen. There are so many sounds that we’ve become accustomed to in our day-to-day lives that we often just tune them out automatically. The Super Bowl is no exception. The event is wall-to-wall sound. From the gameplay itself, the fans, all the transitions in and out of play, the announcers, the half time show and of course, the commercials. Advertisers have a lot of competition during the Super Bowl. How can we stand out above all the rest, above all that sound?

To be honest, I gave up on watching the Super Bowl for the commercials. By a certain point, I get overwhelmed by the effort and expense and completely underwhelmed by the result.

A Super Bowl ad aspires to capture the hearts and minds of 110 million people watching the game. Newcastle proved you don’t have to actually appear on TV during the Super Bowl to do that.

I’ve always considered myself a 90’s kid despite being born in 1985. TV was my daily routine in the 90’s, and it couldn’t have been during more impressionable years. While watching hours of Nickelodeon and MTV, I was bombarded by countless advertisements.

I’m newly 30. I’ve been married for 7 years. I can barely figure out how to use Snapchat. But, being born in 1986 puts me in the same category as those who never knew life without the Internet. Who got cell phones before they were in their double digits. Who have Snapscores of 60K+. I'm a Millennial!?!