They should probably rename it the Super ‘Tech’ Bowl as this year’s Super Bowl seemed a lot less about sport and more about tech giants getting one up on one another.
In fairness, the excitement around the biggest event on America’s sports calendar is palpable, but it also showed the rate of technological change – Twitter reported an average of 10,000 tweets per second in the final three minutes of the game.
This year was also the first year the Super Bowl was allowed to be streamed online by the NFL and NBC, showing how the internet has become centre stage in American life and media.
As usual, the Super Bowl was an opportunity to throw up movie trailers and teasers but Samsung took the opportunity to throw out that video of hipsters in a line waiting for a new smartphone in what was clearly a dig at Apple fan boys with an ad for the new Galaxy Note – ‘it even has a pen!’ No doubt Samsung expects this latest video extravaganza to go viral.
Best Buy brought a little more intelligence to the affair with a series of video ads that celebrated the inventors of things like the camera phone (Philippe Kahn) and the creators of Instagram, Shazam and Square.
By the way, did anyone realise that despite the advertising extravaganza the Super Bowl is really a sports event? No? Seriously. Two teams played last night – the New York Giants and the New England Patriots. The Giants won, sealing a 21-17 victory at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
