If you know me at all, you might be surprised to hear I watched the Super Bowl yesterday. If you know me well, you'll understand I watched it only for the excuse to eat snack food all afternoon and witness the "Madonna is a complete narcissist and we all love it" half-time show.

As a result, I happened to catch a few of the epic Super Bowl commercials, including the Chrysler spot featuring Clint Eastwood.  It actually prompted me to yell "Stop trying to manipulate my feelings Clint Eastwood! I know you're getting paid big money to spout this go team America crap in the name of selling cars!" at the tv. Or something like that. It's a bit hazy now—I'd already had a few and was pretty much on my way to a major food-coma as well. 

Anyway, I do remember right around the point when old Clint said it was "half-time for America, too" that the golden veil between immaculate creative execution and grubby consumerist culture dropped.

Now I love interesting, cool, innovative advertising and I'm guilty of getting emotionally hooked by it all the time. I love advertising the most when, even though I know its only purpose is to make me do/buy something I don't need, I don't even care because the creative is so darn amazing. This Chrysler commercial fell way short of the mark for me—it just felt too pandering, too populist and too obvious.

After watching it again at work this morning, I thought maybe my nacho-fueled rage yesterday may have been a bit of an over-reaction. I still think it's a crappy commercial, but in the more rational light of Monday morning, I'm more in tune with the fact I'm obviously not the target market for this ad. 

So I'm curious  . . . do you think the angle Chrysler is taking is an effective one for their target market? And for that matter, who do you think their target market is judging by their Super Bowl ad? 

(Feel free to sound off on other Super Bowl ads and share your favourites with us, too.)