Image via CrunchBase

Canadian Super Bowl Advertising. It’s not lame.

Coast to coast, the Super Sunday commercials are debated, discussed, and dissed. As much I participate in critiquing the ads aired, there’s one annual collective Canadian statement I don’t agree with:

“The Canadian advertising is lame.”

I like the American ads as much as the next Joe Canadian – I actually muted the game and watched the US spots on Youtube – but it doesn’t mean that Canadian advertising is worse than American advertising. We’re lucky to have some of the best creative minds in the world living and working right here in our home and native land.  

No, it’s not about talent. It’s not about ability. It’s about money.

With ten times the population and the budgets to match, our American counterparts can afford to deliver spots with insane production values that are created exclusively for that one event and the audience it attracts. A brief that targeted is bound to create brilliant work. And it has. Some of the best commercials of all time – Apple’s “1984”, Budweiser’s “9/11 Tribute” and Google’s “Parisian Love” – were aired only once and that was during the Super Bowl.

North of the border, we just can’t do that.

There aren’t many Canadian clients who can invest a significant portion of their budget for one big spot created exclusively for one big night. And if you tuned in last night, you experienced what that means.

It means we get pretty good commercials that we’ve probably seen before or new ones that were produced in the US and customized for our market by changing “.com” to “.ca”. Even the select few that are specifically created for CTV’s Super Bowl feed (Thanks, TD) are done with modest budgets and a lot less fanfare.

We don’t blow our budgets on one big party. We’re Canadian. We’re responsible. And sometimes, that’s better in the long run. Right, Fannie Mae?