This is a follow-up to my blog post from Friday.

I didn’t end up watching the Super Bowl yesterday, but my partner watched it at a friend’s house and he brought along the End-It Bingo sheet (created by Riverview Center which I found on the Men’s Anti-Violence Council blog).

My partner and his friends took the Bingo card seriously. Not only did they make a mark each time a commercial fit into a category, but they noted which company’s commercial warranted the mark. They marked off almost all of the squares on the sheet and added a few more categories. “Street harassment” became a category when Pepsi Max included it in one of their commercials.

Overall, my partner felt that the companies that produced the most offensive ads were Go-Daddy (no surprise there), Sketchers, and Pepsi Max. He said he was the most surprised by the Sketchers commercial, saying, “I didn’t think they’d take footwear to that extreme.” When I read through his Bingo card today, I saw that he wrote Pepsi Max the most times in the various boxes. Thumbs down to these companies!

I wasn’t sure how my partner’s friends would react to the Bingo sheet since it would bring up serious subjects during a fun event. But they were really supportive and actively participated. My partner said the Bingo card got them all thinking critically about the commercials and noticing how companies were trying to sell products. It also made them more aware of and appreciative of the companies that didn’t have to resort to violence or sexism in their commercials (the Volkswagen commercial with the kid in the Darth Vader mask was a big hit).

What were your thoughts about the commercials? Did you use the Bingo card?