February 08, 2012

My Dysfunctional Super Bowl Spot

During my creative director days I was a pretty good copywriter. By no means a great one, but usually pretty good.

My one shot at Super Bowl glory came in the mid-90's. I was commissioned to write a Super Bowl spot -- but not just any Super Bowl spot. I believe I may have written the world's first TV spot for erectile dysfunction. You can only imagine how proud how I am.

It was the year before Viagra was introduced. The product was called Muse. It was a tiny little suppository pill. Now, I'm not going to tell you where you put this tiny little suppository pill because this a family-friendly blog. Use your imagination and try not to scream.

Remember, this was a time at which nobody had ever even said "erectile dysfuntion" out loud on television. Consequently, we did a very modest, demure spot. No creepy, horny old people in bathtubs.

Ed Asner did the voice over and visually it was simply typography reinforcing Ed's copy points. We bought time on the Super Bowl and were ready for a firestorm.

A few days before the Super Bowl, however, the network decided that America was not ready for erectile dysfunction. They canceled the spot.

You might say that, yes, I wrote a Super Bowl spot. But because of NBC, I never got it up.

The Best Super Bowl Spot That No One Saw
This spot for Old Milwaukee beer ran in only one market during the Super Bowl --  North Platte, Nebraska, the 2nd smallest TV market in America. It is by far the funniest and most memorable Super Bowl spot I have seen. It puts to shame all the big, loud, and witless inanities that tried to pass for creativity on Sunday.


Thanks to David Burn at AdPulp for this.

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