Thursday, February 9, 2012

Korean companies in the Superbowl

As I linked to a couple days ago, Korean corporations' ads apparently bought up some fifteen percent of the ads aired during the Superbowl, an event nowadays known almost as much for its hilarious, clever, or heartstring-tugging commercials as it is football.

The big three — Hyundai, Samsung, and Kia — are already household names, but they refuse to rest on their laurels as they compete with the likes of Honda, Toyota, Chevrolet, and Apple, most of whom also had ads during the Superbowl.

Anyway, they mostly have lived up to the challenge...



The above Kia Optima "Dream Car" ad features Adriana Lima, a Monster Island favorite. She was also in another favorite ad for Teleflora, which brought the message if you give her flowers, she'll give something in return:



Okay, then. To recap: Kushibo likes Adriana Lima, who, despite being an uber-rich super model, will have sex with you if you buy her a dozen roses. It's not that complicated.

And Hyundai has its workers — whom they seem to be emphasizing are American — singing the theme song to Liancourt Rocky to show they have that can-do spirit:



This Hyundai Genesis Coupe ad, while clever, is appalling from a Public Health perspective:



Just get out and do the danged CPR already!

The Hyundai Veloster ad also makes me wonder about issues of animal cruelty, and the public health dangers of raising exotic pets:



But that's just me. This Hyundai Elantra ad, tooting its own horn for having been chosen North American Car of the Year for 2012, was not in the Superbowl, I think (I missed a huge chunk of the game), but was Superbowl-adjacent:



Ditto with this one for the Hyundai Genesis, now in a new, even more powerful formula:



Samsung has an amusing ad that makes a lot more sense if you've seen their series of ads mocking people who wait in long lines for the latest Apple iTeration (see how I did that?):



For a round-up of all this year's ads (and previous years'), go to this handy-dandy Hulu site, which links viewers' favorites.

I'll just end this with my favorite for the year:



It's supposed to be a Volkswagen ad, but you tell me if dogs barking the evil imperial march isn't related to at least one of the Koreas.

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