# Superbowl Ads 2013 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 3, 2013, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268 "2013-02-03T23:39:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazle_Weatherfield)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268/81 "2013-02-05T07:38:41Z")
> [@Courk](#): > > A sapphire can be any color, _except_ red, which is a ruby. Realizing this with my friends made it the best commercial for me, and we were too focused on that to care much about the fish. Seriously. They couldn’t have Googled that or something? ---
**Author:** ![Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazle_Weatherfield)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268/82 "2013-02-05T07:39:49Z")
> [@Courk](#): > > A sapphire can be any color, _except_ red, which is a ruby. Realizing this with my friends made it the best commercial for me, and we were too focused on that to care much about the fish. Seriously. They couldn’t have Googled that or something? Or, like, just KNOWN this? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268/83 "2013-02-05T08:15:56Z")
> [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](#): > > Seriously. They couldn’t have Googled that or something? Or, like, just KNOWN this? When it’s 2am and you need beer goggles to see things differently, try Saphire. ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268/84 "2013-02-05T08:32:13Z")
I felt it was a very weak crop this year. The spectacle ads just werent that good. I did think the goat Doritos ad was great. Amy Poehler for Best Buy was funny as well. The car ad with the kid and his football team was fun as well. Worst ads were GoDaddy (ew), Bud Black Crown, and Psy (who has overstayed his welcome). ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268/85 "2013-02-05T16:49:45Z")
> [@Tarwater](#): > > As somebody who’s worked on ranches and farms, and is more than acquainted with the life such work entails, my eyes just about rolled at of my skull when I watched the Dodge commercial. What a worthless, pandering piece of tripe. What specifically did they get wrong? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268/86 "2013-02-05T17:09:02Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > What specifically did they get wrong? Those were farmers from some 50+ years ago. Few farmers are like that today, most stuff is grown by mega-corps. The rest are retirees, organic farmers, and a few hold-outs. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268/87 "2013-02-05T17:31:33Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Those were farmers from some 50+ years ago. Few farmers are like that today, most stuff is grown by mega-corps. > > The rest are retirees, organic farmers, and a few hold-outs. As of 2007, 90% of US farms were small, family farms with less than $250,000 of annual sales. [http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/201431/eib24b\_1\_.pdf](http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/201431/eib24b_1_.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268/88 "2013-02-05T17:59:03Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > As of 2007, 90% of US farms were small, family farms with less than $250,000 of annual sales. > > [http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/201431/eib24b\_1\_.pdf](http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/201431/eib24b_1_.pdf) Exactly. But **most stuff is grown by mega-corps**. _The rest are retirees, organic farmers, and a few hold-outs._ Those small family farms only produce less than 25% of foodstuffs grown in America. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268/89 "2013-02-05T19:00:01Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Those were farmers from some 50+ years ago. Few farmers are like that today, most stuff is grown by mega-corps. > > The rest are retirees, organic farmers, and a few hold-outs. Not where I live. The farmers I know are the jack-of-all-trades kind of person in the ad. The farms around them are not huge mega-corps either. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268/90 "2013-02-05T19:07:26Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Exactly. But **most stuff is grown by mega-corps**. _The rest are retirees, organic farmers, and a few hold-outs._ > > Those small family farms only produce less than 25% of foodstuffs grown in America. I’d like a cite for that. I think you’re confusing large farms with mega-corporations. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268/91 "2013-02-05T21:23:38Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Those small family farms only produce less than 25% of foodstuffs grown in America. Which is irrelevant if you are selling trucks. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268/92 "2013-02-05T21:24:41Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Those small family farms only produce less than 25% of foodstuffs grown in America. 25% is a considerable amount. I think it’s true that there aren’t many small farmers left, but for them, the ad was accurate, especially if they also had stock. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268/93 "2013-02-05T21:38:16Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Which is irrelevant if you are selling trucks. No, it’s not. Ever meet a farmer – big or small – who didn’t own at least one pickup? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268/94 "2013-02-05T21:48:00Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > No, it’s not. Ever meet a farmer – big or small – who didn’t own at least one pickup? And if you add them all up, 90% of them are small, family farmers. Which accounts for the commercial. ---
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268/95 "2013-02-05T21:52:21Z")
I think what **Fear Itself** is saying is that it doesn’t matter what size of farm it is or how much it produces, they still might want to buy a pickup or two. Even better if it’s a Ram. BTW, Ram is supposedly it’s own [company](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Trucks) now, so they are no longer Dodge Rams. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268/96 "2013-02-05T22:09:05Z")
> [@Kimballkid](#): > > I think what **Fear Itself** is saying is that it doesn’t matter what size of farm it is or how much it produces, they still might want to buy a pickup or two. Even better if it’s a Ram. > > BTW, Ram is supposedly it’s own [company](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Trucks) now, so they are no longer Dodge Rams. I think what the above posts are suggesting is that the ad is disingenuous, in that the crusty, salt-of-the-earth, worn-out hands, wrinkly old duffers they were depicting could not afford a new Ram, as depicted at the end. The lowest cost Ram would start in the $25K - $30K range and on up - the one they showed at the end looked like a top-end model, which I would gather the small family farmer would not be able to afford. The ad was an eye-roller for me. I liked the Joe Montana stain ad, and I was pulling for the 49ers. Go-Daddy. No, just, no. ---
**Author:** ![MacCat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maccat/32/216_2.png) [@MacCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacCat)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268/97 "2013-02-05T22:28:00Z")
Out on the east end of Long Island there are still plenty of farms, none “corporate” that I know of. Seems to me that most of the farmers have Chevy trucks (some GMC), contractors mostly Fords, and the rest, a mix of those and lots of Rams. ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268/98 "2013-02-05T22:35:33Z")
> [@bup](#): > > I think the best commercial of the night was the old people going to Taco Bell. Look up video for Sigur Rós’ Hoppípolla if you want to see the “original”. 🙂 Agree that it was a weak bunch overall, the Budweiser horse + Landslide was the winner for me. ---
**Author:** ![Tarwater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9de0a6/32.png) [@Tarwater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tarwater)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268/99 "2013-02-06T00:10:53Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > What specifically did they get wrong? Too many old white men wearing hats and squinting, for one. To their credit, however, they did include a Mexican in their montage of grizzled white farmers looking stoically into the middle distance. It was a token effort to seem inclusive – a way of saying, “See, we have Mexican friends! Also, note the black guy.” But it was something, I guess. Most farm work, even way up in Montana, the state from which all my experience proceeds, is performed by Mexicans. The cherry orchards surrounding Flathead lake have so many migrants workers that college students from the state universities are recruited en masse to fill ESL positions. Anecdotal, but one of the hardest working men I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing was a Mexican field hand who’d come up from California. He came from California for work as a shepherd, and he brought two daughters who were still a year’s approach from being school age, and who spoke practically no English. He worked with his daughters on a mountain directly across from where I was living at the time. They lived in a trailer that was little more than a tent, with a herd of sheep thick around them, all bleating and crying, all the time. Back then, I woke up early every morning, and as the sun was rising, I could see him tending to the flock by the light of an old battery-powered lantern. Even coming home at three in the morning, on the nights when it was cloudy and starless, I could see him working. A solitary speck of light on the mountain. Which is all to say that the commercial is several shades whiter than it should be. And it makes sense, from a marketing perspective. Ram isn’t selling to poor migrant workers. They’re selling to middle-aged white men who want to implicate themselves in the great American myth of the hard-working Anglo farmer. The end of the commercial offers the Ram pick-up truck as a badge, a kind of symbol of belonging. As if owning a Ram has any connection to anything except paying too much for a truck. I find the whole implication odious, to say the least. And while I’m at it, here’s some bomb-throwing: Most of the small, family-owned farms I know are run by unrepentant racists, with a deep and abiding dislike of people who are different from them. On the subject of gender equality, most women were expected to cook and clean, as well as perform minor functions around the farm and leave the harder (read: more rewarding) work to the men. When the men come together during calving season – meaning the men from nearby ranches and the hired hands, as well as sons, cousins and nephews – women are expected (read: obligated, required) to cook for everybody. Which is a fine tradition, if you’re into it. And not so fine if you aren’t. Incidentally, there’s also nothing romantic about working for twelve hours a day, with equipment older than you by three decades, which can’t be repaired properly or retired because running a farm (or, even more egregiously so, a ranch) is no longer profitable. It’s an ugly business, and it breaks you. You watch a commercial and think to yourself, “Wow, shoeing a horse with a piece of rubber! What an industrious person!” but the rancher himself is thinking only about how well and truly fucked he is. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268/100 "2013-02-06T02:16:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Fear Itself** : > > As of 2007, 90% of US farms were small, family farms with less than $250,000 of annual sales. Number of farms is the wrong measure here. Of course there are a lot of small farms: That’s because they’re small. But if the average big farm is, say, 20 times larger than the average small farm, that would mean that the significant majority of farming is on those few big farms. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superbowl-ads-2013/649268.md?page=6)