Ragnarok vs Trump + Bloomberg-- Over $20 Million Wasted On Super Bowl Ads PLUS... A Bonus Midnight Meme

Trump's Super Bowl ad was rated dead last of 62 ads. He wasted $11 million on something that made people hate him even more than they already do. Bloomberg didn't do much better... just a little better. But Trump was the big 2020 Super Bowl loser.

Thank God for YouTube. Sunday I was able to binge-watch my favorite new Norwegian TV series on Netflix, Ragnarok, which mixes the Climate Crisis with the greatest tale of Norse mythology, Ragnarök, a series of events, including a great battle, foretold to lead to the death of a number of great figures, natural disasters and the submersion of the world in water. How does YouTube figure into this? Aside from watching the duel between the Norse gods and giants, I was eager to see the dueling presidential Super Bowl ads by the feuding conservative assholes, Trump (a former Democrat) and Bloomberg (a former Republican), but without having to watch the Super Bowl.

Yesterday all I could find were the two billionaire former friends-turned-rivals insulting each other like 9 year olds, Trump calling Bloomberg "Mini-Mike" and denigrating short people (Bloomberg is 5'8" and there are tens of millions of male voters who are that size or shorter). Bloomberg responded by pointing out that Trump "is a pathological liar who lies about everything: his fake hair, his obesity, and his spray-on tan... I stand twice as tall as he does on the stage that matters." At least, unlike Randy Newman and Marco Rubio, Bloomberg didn't refer to Trump's abnormally small hands/penis. But this morning I found the ads themselves... on YouTube.

Each asshole spent over 10 million dollars on the ads they ran. I doubt either ad changed a single vote. Both targeted African American voters, a demographic that dislikes-- and rightfully so-- both Trump and Bloomberg. This was one of the two 30 second Trump ads.





And this was the instant Bloomberg campaign spoof of the other Trump ad, which, unfortunately, hasn't been played on TV:





Here's the original 60 second Super Bowl spot that Bloomberg did run. The reaction was largely "meh" and it isn't expected to help him much in the Iowa caucuses tonight:





Politico reported that "Ad experts and political consultants who previewed the ads weren’t all that impressed, suggesting that they were standard political fare that would pale against the flashier, more inventive offerings for which the game is known. 'The goal on the Super Bowl, whether you’re a beer company or an automobile manufacturer or a politician, is to have everybody talking about your ad the next day,' said Fred Davis, a Republican ad-maker and founder of Strategic Perception, a California ad firm. 'This isn’t going to be the Bloomberg ad and that isn’t going to be the Trump ad we saw.'"

The other Trump ad-- an appeal to his base-- which had been released a few days before the game, "took on a more Trumpian-tone," highlighting Trump's specious claims that he is responsible for the country's supposed economic growth, "while cutting between clips of his rallies, military ships and planes and industrial workers. 'And ladies and gentleman, the best is yet to come,' Trump says, closing out the ad as his supporters applaud. If Trump’s Stronger, Safer, More Prosperous spot--clips of his rallies, military ships and planes and industrial workers--is a 30-second shot of 'Everything is great' spin, Bloomberg’s one-minute ad... is a far more somber reminder that the country has some big problems to confront. Bloomberg, a former New York mayor who has made gun control a signature issue, barely speaks in the ad. Instead, it’s narrated by Calandrian Simpson Kemp, a Texas woman whose son, George H. Kemp, was shot to death in 2013. As the camera pans through photos of a young George in football gear, Kemp says: 'When I heard Mike was stepping into the ring, I thought, Now we have a dog in the fight.'"

Davis, who has produced political Super Bowl ads in regional markets, said Trump’s criminal justice ad was a good counter to Bloomberg’s anti-gun spot. It’s likely Trump kept it a secret to generate more buzz and prevent Bloomberg from changing his ad prior to the game, Davis said, adding that Trump may have produced more than one commercial and made a last second call on which to air. The two spots released earlier in the week were duds because they didn't tell viewers anything new or unexpected about the candidates, he said. To get people to put down their beers and chicken wings, the billionaires would have needed to do something surprising or entertaining. For Trump, that could’ve been a commercial showing his humility. Bloomberg, who has long been known as a leading gun control advocate, could’ve highlighted a part of his life the public doesn’t already know about, he added.

Ad-makers don’t think the commercials will sway any voters. But while most people have made up their minds about Trump, who’s a household name, experts say Bloomberg’s ad purchase will give him a little more bang for his buck because he can get his name in front of people who haven’t yet heard of him.

“A huge proportion of Americans don’t even know who Michael Bloomberg is,” said John Geer, dean of Vanderbilt University’s College of Arts and Sciences and a political science professor who has written about presidential ad campaigns. “He’s providing some baseline information for lots of Americans and he’s gained a huge audience. So there's actually much more of an upside as far as just giving people that initial impression of Bloomberg than there is with Trump.”

Bloomberg is betting on a barrage of ads to deliver him the Democratic nomination. The billionaire’s self-funded campaign is expected to drop $300 million on TV spots by March, when he is set to be on the ballot for the first time. And his strategy appears to be working. Though he entered the race much later than other candidates, he now polls about even to Pete Buttigieg and ahead of Sen. Amy Klobuchar in national surveys.

Trump has few political points to gain with his Super Bowl ad, experts said. So why did he spend the money?

“It’s all ego,” said Mark Longabaugh, a partner at Devine Mulvey Longabaugh, a Democratic media consulting firm working with Andrew Yang’s campaign. “He's not going to let Mike Bloomberg advertise in the biggest national sporting event of the year with the biggest audience.”

The L.A. Times reported that Bloomberg "is far outspending all of his Democratic rivals, surpassing $300 million, according to Advertising Analytics. He is skipping the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, plowing his money instead into California, Texas and more than a dozen other states with contests still more than a month away.

...On Saturday, Trump tweeted that “Mini Mike Bloomberg” was wasting his money on advertising, then went on to make his false allegation about the box.

USA Today's AdMeter measured how successful each Super Bowl ad was. Jeep's Groundhog Day was numero uno with an average rating of 7.01, followed by Hyundai's Smart Pahk with a 6.98 average and Google's Loretta close behind with a 6.77 average. The political ads didn't fair as well. In fact, Señor Trumpanzee's Criminal Justice Reform came in dead last with an average rating of 3.33. His pal Bloomberg didn't do much better-- the third to last (#60 out of 62 ads) with an average of 4.23. As for YouTube views, only 11 ads had over 10 million views:

• Amazon- 60.8 million
• Hyundai- 38.6 million
• Genesis- 25.9 million
• Jeep- 25.9 million
• Facebook- 21.8 million
• Budweiser- 14.3 million
• Microsoft- 13.6 million
• Google- 12.5 million
• Cheetos- 11.2 million
• Heinz- 11.0 million
• Olay- 10.2 million

Neither Bloomberg, with 4.3 million views, nor the Evil Orange Blob with less than 137,000 views, was in the ballpark of having produced a successful ad. Trump just managed to beat the utterly lame Avocados from Mexico Shopping Network ad, which was rated better than his #52 with a 4.61 average rating, but only got a bit over 125,000 YouTube views.





Noah couldn't wait for midnight-- and you'll see why tonight-- for this one, so... here's a bonus:

Extra! Extra! Midnight Meme: Special Super Bowl Edition!!!
-by Noah

Hey kids, what time is it?

It's Sharpie time!

The stable genius has struck again! No the knuckle-dragging Trumpanzee didn't actually draw on the map to justify his idiocy again, at least not yet, but as you can see in the tweet, he did congratulate the state of Kansas when the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl last night. Never mind the fact that Kansas City is legally a city in the neighboring state of Missouri. Let's just chalk it up to more of Trump's patented Real Fake News.

Now if someone can just convince the walking bag of Cheetos that that big chunk of Antartica ice that's about to break off into the sea due to "non-existent" global warming is also a state and is home to millions of Trump fans and that he needs to go hold a rally there and get bigly ratings...

Can you imagine if the Philadelphia Eagles were in the game and won? Trumpanzee would be congratulating Mississippi, since Philadelphia, Mississippi is the only Philadelphia in the country that means anything to him.