Clever switch in Super Bowl ad

This sharp-eyed observation comes courtesy of my wife, Missy.

It concerns an ad for Flo TV that first aired during the Super Bowl last week. The spot, titled "Spineless," shows a young man being dragged along on a shopping trip with his girlfriend, and missing "the big game" as a consequence. Just to sharpen the point, for most of the commercial he's walking around with a red bra draped over his shoulder.

When we saw the game during ESPN's telecast of the Syracuse-Louisville basketball game on Sunday, Missy noticed that the big-screen TVs in the background of the stores they walk through, as well as the FloTV sample screen close-ups, showed basketball action. Remembering that it had been a Super Bowl spot, she was a little incredulous. They didn't have basketball action in the background during the Super Bowl, did they? she wondered.

So, we found an online version of the ad as it was broadcast during the Super Bowl and, sure enough, the sports clips in that one are football. Same commercial in general regarding dialogue, actors and all ... but customized for the sporting event it appears within. Very clever use of post-production technology to target an audience.

So, now that we've noticed this I'll be looking for it during NBC's telecasts of Olympic hockey to see whether it has skaters in the scenes rather than cagers or gridders.