Super Bowl ads you can't refuse

Audi pays homage to 'The Godfather,' Bud has a dog and pony show and Go Daddy gets racy (again). Here are the Super Bowl ads you'll be talking about on Monday.
By Ben Rooney, CNNMoney.com staff writer

Anheuser-Busch
Anheuser-Busch is regularly the largest buyer of Super Bowl spots and usually ranks well in the post-game polls. This year, the Bud brewer has purchased six 30-second spots that will be dedicated to Bud Light and one 60-second spot for good old Budweiser.
The 60-second spot tells the tale of a discouraged horse that doesn't make the cut for the brewer's trademark team of Clydesdales. But a spunky Dalmatian, another familiar Budweiser character, helps the horse stage a Rocky-esque comeback.
In one 30-second spot, three cavemen struggle to move a Stone Age ice chest filled with Bud Light and bicker in caveman talk. Another caveman appears with a gigantic stone wheel. What happens next? Well, the dawn of civilization comes another day.
Other ads Anheuser-Busch has in store will feature x-ray vision, fire breathing, wine & cheese and comedian Carlos Mencia.

Audi of America
Audi will return to the Super Bowl after a 20 year hiatus with a 60-second spot based on an iconic scene from the classic mafia movie "The Godfather." Alex Rocco, who played the character of Moe Greene, will star in the ad.
"We chose 'The Godfather' to anchor our Super Bowl ad because, at its core, the film is about a struggle between old and new power. In precisely that fashion, Audi represents the rise of a new force in luxury," said Scott Keogh, chief marketing officer, Audi of America in a statement.
The ad will promote the Audi R8 sports car, a sleek two-door that sells for more than $100,000, and was filmed outside a multi-million dollar mansion.
Audi's focus on targeting the luxury market is in stark contrast to concerns expressed by another automaker advertising in the Super Bowl. Hyundai of America said earlier this month that it was reviewing its decision to advertise during the big game because of softness in the U.S market. Ultimately, Hyundai decided to stay in the game with two 30-second spots.

Careerbuilder.com
CareerBuilder.com takes the phrase "heart-wrenching" to a literal extreme in one of its two 30-second spots in this year's Super Bowl.
The online job source plans to target disgruntled employees with an ad showing a woman who is stuck in a dissatisfying job but can't muster the confidence to quit. So, her heart does it for her.
In the past, CareerBuilder.com ads have used humor to reach their target audience but this year's approach will be more inspiring than funny.
"This year's campaign is more poignant and urges the sense of empowerment," said Richard Castellini, CareerBuilder.com's Vice President of Consumer Marketing.
The ads will be punctuated with motivational catch-phrases like, "Start Building" and "Self-Help Yourself."

Cars.com
Next time you go to buy a car, be sure to bring along an angry tribal warrior in case you need back up. That's the message behind one of Cars.com's Super Bowl spots.
In this commercial we see someone successfully close the deal on a new car, without having to resort to "Plan B," thanks to insight from Cars.com. What was "Plan B" you ask?
"I was going to have you fight Glandor," the buyer tells an unsuspecting car salesman.
Enter angry warrior.

FedEx
This year, it's FedEx's turn to show us how animals can cause havoc in the workplace.
Monkeys have been featured prominently in Super Bowl ads before, often running amok in an office environment. But the parcel delivery company decided to go with a more product-appropriate animal for this year's spot.
The ad depicts a well-meaning office clerk who tries to handle his company's shipping needs with carrier pigeons. Chaos ensues and we are reminded of how FedEx's portfolio of services can help small businesses.

General Motors
Last year, GM was one of the advertisers experimenting with user-generated ads during the Super Bowl. This year, however, the company ditched that idea, which most experts said was unsuccessful, in favor of a more simple approach to promote the hybrid version of its GMC Yukon SUV.
The ad will be animated in black-and-white and will depict a climber pushing a boulder uphill with a voice-over asking a number of rhetorical questions.
"Why push? Why change? Why grow? Why dream?"
These are some pretty deep questions for a Super Bowl ad. Not to mention the heady reference to Sisyphus. Thankfully, the voice-over answers them for you:
"Questions you don't have to ask yourself, when you never say `it's good enough.'"
This stripped-down approach is a bit of a departure from typical SUV ads. But the more philosophical tone may be designed to appeal to hybrid buyers.

Godaddy.com
Go Daddy has a reputation to consider.
Last year, the Internet domain name registrar was rejected three times by CBS for proposing commercials that were deemed inappropriate. This year, Fox denied ten of Go Daddy's submissions before settling on one, entitled "Spot On," which features Indy race car driver and "Go Daddy Girl" Danica Patrick.
But the ad was not the company's first choice, according to Bob Parsons, Go Daddy's CEO. So, Parsons decided to use Go Daddy's spot to show viewers how to see, "Exposure," the ad he wanted to air during the game.
"We are going to have to make lemonade out of lemons on this one. It's risky, but we've changed our whole marketing plan so we can leverage something out of this smokin' hot spot," Parsons said in a statement.

PepsiCo
The beverage maker has purchased two minutes of Super Bowl ad time this year but one spot promises to be slightly different from the others. Pepsi announced last week that its pregame ad "Bob's House" will be a silent ad.
"If a television commercial airs on Super Bowl Sunday and no one hears it, does it make a sound?" asks a Pepsi press release. Judging by the amount of buzz this ad has generated already, the answer is yes.
The 60-second commercial was created by Pepsi employees who are deaf and features dialogue in American Sign Language with written subtitles. The spot is based on a popular joke in the deaf community that involves a quiet street and loud horn honking.
In addition to advertising soft-drinks and potato chips, Pepsi's hope is to use the Super Bowl as a platform to create awareness of issues concerning the American deaf community.
"By bringing the world an ad performed by deaf employees in ASL, we feel like we've already scored the upset on Super Bowl Sunday said Clay Broussard, a PepsiCo employee and project lead on Bob's House.."

Salesgenie.com
After making what was widely considered to be the worst ad of last year's Super Bowl, salesgenie.com is planning a follow-up that it hopes will be even worse.
The company, which generates online sales leads and mailing lists, says that last year's ad was "a huge money maker," despite being a failure in most media polls, according to a salesgenie.com press release.
This year's ad features an animated salesman named Ramesh whose boss threatens to fire him if he doesn't double his sales. In the end, Ramesh finds salesgenie.com and becomes the salesman of the year.
Vin Gupta, chief executive officer of infoUSA, the publicly traded parent company of salesgenie.com, came up with the idea and wrote the copy for this year's ad, as he did last year.
"If it [the ad] positively impacts business like it did last year, we'd be thrilled to be the worst again," Gupta said in a statement.

White House ONDCP
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy will use its first Super Bowl ad in four years to warn parents about the dangers of prescription drug abuse among teens.
"Though overall teen drug use is down nationwide, more teens abuse prescription drugs than any other illicit drug," the ONDCP said in a statement.
The Super Bowl spot is part of a larger campaign that will include print, online, community outreach and other advertising platforms.

Economy much weaker than expected

Gross domestic product slowed to a 0.6% growth rate in the fourth quarter, raising both recession fears and hope for another deep Fed cut.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Economic growth nearly ground to a halt in the last three months of 2007, according to a government report released Wednesday that showed the sharpest decline in growth since 2003.
The report raised fears of a recession and increased hopes that the Federal Reserve will make another significant interest rate cut today. But it included some worrisome inflation readings could end up tying the Fed's hands.
Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation's economic activity, grew at an annual rate of 0.6%, adjusted for inflation, in the fourth quarter, according to the Commerce Department.
That's down from a final reading of 4.9% growth for the third quarter. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast GDP growth would slow to 1.2%.
The anemic growth in the fourth quarter matched the slowest expansion in the economy in the past five years. The report comes amid rising concerns that the U.S. economy is falling into a recession, with some economists arguing the downturn started in the final month of 2007.
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez told CNNMoney.com he still expects the economy to avoid falling into a recession, but the report is further proof that Congress must act quickly on an estimated $150 billion financial stimulus package passed by the House Tuesday.
"We're not happy with 0.6% GDP growth," he conceded. "This is exactly why we need to get the stimulus package out as soon as possible and get checks into consumers' hands."
The weak economic reading also comes as the Fed concludes a two-day meeting to consider whether or not to cut interest rates once again in order to spur the economy and ward off a recession. The central bank has already lowered rates by 1.75 percentage points since September, including an emergency 0.75 percentage point cut, also known as a 75 basis point cut, a week ago.
Investors are betting the Fed will cut rates at least another quarter-percentage point. And according federal funds futures on the Chicago Board of Trade, investors were pricing in 80% likelihood of a half-point cut as of mid-morning trading Wednesday.
"Today's GDP figures give the Fed the green light to cut the federal funds rate," said Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wachovia, which is one of the firms looking for a half-point rate cut.
Inflation worries rise. But while economic weakness may allow the Fed to aggressively cut rates, the inflation readings in the report could be a concern for the central bank. The so-called price deflator, which measures prices overall, rose at a 2.6% annual rate, up from only a 1% rise in the third quarter but in line with forecasts.
Perhaps of greater concern is that the so-called core PCE deflator - a more closely watched inflation reading that measures prices that individuals pay excluding volatile food and energy prices - rose 2.7%, higher than the 2.5% economists were predicting and up from a 2% reading in the third quarter.
Many economists believe the Fed would be more comfortable with this measure of inflation rising between 1% and 2%.
But Gus Faucher, director of macroeconomics for Moody's Economy.com, said the GDP report showed enough weakness across broad swaths of the economy that a recession now appears more likely than it did before the report. The Fed may have little choice but to go ahead and cut rates aggressively, he said.
"I think they're committed at this point," said Faucher. "The core PCE is certainly higher than what the Fed would like to see. But given the overall weakness in the report, it's hard to see where inflationary pressures are going to be coming from in the future. Given what the Fed said last week, I think we still get a half-point cut."
Widespread weakness. The slowdown in the housing sector shaved almost 1.2 percentage points off of the growth rate, as spending on residential construction fell at nearly a 24% annual rate.
Changes in non-farm inventories also shaved nearly 1.2 percentage points off overall growth, suggesting that businesses could be pulling back in anticipation of a slowdown. But Gutierrez said he believes that's a sign that businesses will pick up production in the first quarter in order to replenish those inventories.
The output from U.S. auto plants cut 0.9 percentage points off growth, marking the biggest drag from that sector in two years.
Personal consumption, a proxy for spending by individuals on everyday needs, added nearly 1.4 percentage points to growth. But that was a relatively weak reading for the fourth quarter, which includes the holiday shopping period.
The only time fourth-quarter personal consumption has grown at a slower rate than this in the past five years was in 2005, when the economy took a hit from Hurricane Katrina.