Will this be the Last Time I Watch the Super Bowl on TV?
It's true. Next year, I may skip the actual Super Bowl on TV and go directly to YouTube to watch the commercials as they go live.
No, it's not because the power went out on this year's game. Yes, it is because I am Canadian. But not because I so love the slightly different rules of the CFL that watching the NFL is incomprehensible..
It's because I can't watch the US ads on my Canadian feed. Now, this seems like an inconsequential and trivial item and should at best be mildly annoying. But for some reason it's not.
I tuned in to the Super Bowl every year to see the ads. It was an event, not unlike the Oscars. The next day everyone talked about the ads, as a marketer you saw the best of the best and what the top companies - and the up-and-coming companies (remember the first Go Daddy ad?) - were doing.
Now, I see repeats of the same ads I've seen for the past 12 months. So while I am watching the game and checking Twitter I see all the trending tags for Psy and Budweiser and have no idea what they are talking about.
So I decide to tweet CRTC - and get directed to their website. They explain in great detail why they don't/can't show the Super Bowl ads - and then direct me to a YouTube channel on their website where I can watch the US ads in real time. Now that's interesting!
Worst part? I am literally 20 steps from the US border and just learned I could have purchased a TV antenna to watch the feed (I should have realized this would be possible since I consistently get US roaming charges on my cell bill for talking from home).
In fact, I was reading that many people actually went out and bought antenna's simply to watch the Super Bowl ads? Now is that a sign of how desperate we are to see the ads (after all they are on YouTube) - or is it our passive Canadian way of rebelling against a CRTC rule we don't agree with.
That reminds me of when I was six and used a fork as an antenna to access the Seattle channels. We have come full circle!
Ok, so we did get a couple of good Canadian-only commercials. I do love Martin Short and the Michael Buble in bed with Avril and Chad was pretty good.
