It's a pretty funny joke. The silence will grab people when this airs, I bet.

Yes, people will turn to their sets afraid that it might be broken.

Unless they're the types who "mute" whenever the commercials come on.

Yup - only to be blasted out of their seats when the next sound blares through their speakers. ;)

It'll get buzz I'm sure. It's different and has that "good cause" angle, at the same time it's quite funny. The whole explaining the setup I could do without though, that was just annoying. I hope they aren't wasting money on actually airing that part of the commercial during the bowl.

I don't think they will. That's part of their online support for it I think.

Funnily enough...there is no international sign language - its different all over the world. Sometimes radically different.

Fantastic. The joke is old but just airing a sign language based ad is a small revolution.

Of course I'm left wondering why not a single house on the block has a single light on moments before the kickoff, but I wouldn't want to be accused of political incorrectness. One would assume that every house on the block including Bob's would have a few lights on.

Shhh, you're gonna ruin it. Chalk it up to the magic of film! (In all seriousness that detail bugged me too. I convinced myself that everyones TV room is toward the yard and the only room with lights on.)

No one believes in the magic of film more than me, but this is an ad, that despite its humor, begs you to confront the reality of life. And I'm not sure I should be asked to both confront and suspend reality all in the same thirty seconds.

On the other hand, I'm about to shoot a very serious drama in which a Danish woman talks to Swedish dead people in English, so who am I to talk. :-)

Just before the kick off of the Super Bowl, everybody's lights are off?

This spot blows.

haha great point!

Did I not make the very same point fourteen hours ago?

You did. This should have during the game for extra impact. Minus points for not pulling out all the stops.

Was this ad even aired during the game? I watched the whole thing and never saw it, and didn't see it listed in the Super Bowl Ads thread...

"Airing Pre-Game" in the post means it aired before the game began. Pre-game and Post-game and Regional ads get posted in the superbowl tag, but we don't bother reviewing them anymore. Cheapskates. ;P

Oh shoot. So I did miss it. And sorry, I also missed the "pre-game" reference.

NP man we all miss things sometimes, I mean you can still see that ad here. Though I would have wanted to see peoples reactions to it more than anything else.

They did air that part before the ad, which made me change my rating of the ad stripping it of a heart, I don't like that part, it's writing the viewer on the nose. They should have just aired the ad alone for a more shocking "omg! what was that?" watercooler talk effect..

Right, but they probably thought that airing the intro pushed their agenda even further. Had they really considered the omg effect of just running the ad by itself, maybe they would have gone that way and taken the riskier but more effective route.

Not all reactions were positive.

Pepsi Super Bowl Ad Exploits Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Gosh, wasn’t that nice of them to share their innovative advertising spot with me? Of course me and my readers would find it interesting. But Pepsi, don’t you think you should compensate deaf and hard of hearing bloggers and website owners if they agree to put your ad videos up on their sites for all of their readers to see? Collectively, I’m sure you’ll garner thousands of views from the deaf and hard of hearing community in advance of the Super Bowl. Thus you’ll be getting the incredible, targeted pre-game buzz you’re looking for.

Oh, but wait, you already did that! Bloggers all over didn’t think twice and posted your clever ad on their sites and blogged about it too. And they did it all for free. Guess Pepsi doesn’t respect us and our advertising power after all. Shame on you, Pepsi.