In case you haven't noticed, there are a few advertisements running during NBC's coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympics.
And because these Olympic weeks are all about competition, I changed my usual viewing patterns during Wednesday's prime-time broadcast to actually pay attention to the commercials and then rank them one though five. To put that in Olympic terms, that would be gold, silver, bronze and then, let's say, nickel and copper.
Before our list, though, a couple of observations.
First, this ain't the Super Bowl, in terms of the amount of attention advertisers pay to their creative work. Yes, there are a good number of spots produced incorporating Olympic athletes; it's a wonder US decathlete Ashton Eaton had time to train in between all the commercials he was making. But this isn't necessarily a showcase for the debut of new ads, and the spots made with Olympic tie-ins are, generally, an earnest and generic lot: competition, heart and Hershey's, that sort of thing.
Second, you are not imagining it. There really are more ads than normal running during NBC's prime-time telecasts, although it is perhaps not as extreme as you think. During the first three hours Wednesday, I tallied an average of about 18 minutes an hour of commercial time. A 2014 Nielsen study found networks the previous year were running 14 minutes and 15 seconds of ads per hour.
Moreover, a whole lot of the Olympic ads are short, 15-second hits, so it seems like the assault is even more intense. And then there are all those Chevrolet ads with the dim-bulb focus-group people being surprised by Chevy accomplishments, spots that make ad breaks feel really, really long.
You may well hear more about those focus-group spots tomorrow, when I unveil my five worst Olympic ads. But today, it's all about the positive. And now that I've done my version of NBC-style, pre-event hemming and hawing, here are my top 5 ads from Wednesday Olympic prime-time:
5. MC Hammer for 3M's Command wall hooks. Yes, this one is sort of dopey, deriving from the '80s pop rapper's catch phrase, "Hammer time." But that, and smart, subtle touches throughout, are what I like about it. A dad is setting up his college-age kid in his dorm room, and just before a nail gets pounded into a wall, MC Hammer pops out and says, "Stop Hammer time." There's an odd little dance-off between dad and Hammer. And then we hear the tagline for this clever, removable product: "Command, Do no harm." It's like the Hippocratic oath for poster hanging.
4. United Polaris business class. United has a solid ad featuring the Olympic athletes it apparently flies to the games doing their sporty things in the vicinity of airplanes. But this one made my eyes go wide with wonder and desire. The format is unoriginal _ P is for this quality, O is for that quality, L, A, etc. _ but the text is pretty good: "A is for access to everything, including the aisle.... S? So long, jet lag." And the ad's depiction of the little mini nesting spaces United has devised _ for an airplane! _ make me really, really want to fly business class. Or even just get one of those sleep chambers installed in my house. One issue is that if this were real business class, the people occupying those cubbyholes with sheets, walls, and reclining chairs wouldn't be so young and so model-pretty. But, yes, if I could afford it, then sign me up _ when, the ad tells us, Polaris becomes available in December.
3. GE's factory tour. This one features humor that actually makes the ad's point, about General Electric being an "industrial company that's also a digital company." The teen son of a touring family asks about a robot he spies. "That's not a robot," the tour guide replies. "That's my coworker, Earl. He builds jet engines with his human hands." "What about that robot?" "That's a vending machine, Ricky." Well-played, GE, and, you know, next time I'm ordering an industrial turbine, I'll be sure to think of you first.
2. Ashton Eaton and Brianne Thiesen-Eaton for Visa (and Best Buy). Best of the Olympic athlete spots, by a pretty wide measure. The American-Canadian decathlon-heptathlon couple compete to be "first" in a series of domestic scenes, from him being first to cry at a movie they're watching to her, at the end, being first to sign off on the conversation they're having using tablets they paid for with Visa. It's light, nimble and likable all the way through. When he cries, "First" as they brush their teeth, she responds, "That's not a good thing." This commercial is.
1. Google Photos as a storage solution. A problem we've all experienced, being unable to take a crucial photo because our phone is out of memory, gets deftly dramatized. Over and over, viewers see the "Storage Full" screen message pop up just as the skydive is happening, Sasquatch is spotted, etc. Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" plays in the background, and the visuals drive home that point that using Google Photos can free up space on your phone. It's a perfect, perfectly simple spot, and one that looks like it was as much fun to make as it is to watch.
