Below is a sneak peak of the E*Trade 2011 Super Bowl Commercial. It's a very exclusive sneak peak being on youtube and all. It's starring those talking babies again. Remember the first E*Trade baby commercial? It was really funny right? And then the next one was funny. And maybe even the next one was funny. But then a couple of years passed. And now it's on the Super Bowl. AGAIN. So my question is— is it STILL funny?

 

I work in advertising so I know coming up with a Super Bowl worthy commercial is a tough task. And I do think that PARTS of the E*Trade ad are funny, but they've already done the uncensored E*Trade ad. And the rule is usually that if you use the same campaign from previous years on the Super Bowl, you've got to up it a little. Cause you're paying a lot of money for that ad and you want people to talk about it the next day.

I'm guessing E*Trade thinks they are upping it by putting that baby mail thing on the end. So I decided to check it out. I thought the perfect companion to my post would be my very own talking baby video starring Miss Mazzy herself. So I went on to Baby Mail, uploaded a photo and typed in the following text for Mazzy to speak:

"Are the E*Trade baby commercials still funny? Or should the ad agency get their creative juices flowing again and come up with something new?"

I pressed "speak" and Mazzy said it back to me. It actually worked pretty seamlessly. Then I pressed "send" to see how I could share it. There was an email option, a facebook option and a url link option. But no embed option meaning I couldn't post it on Mommy Shorts. So I wanted to hit "cancel". But there was no "cancel". Although there was a little fine print on the bottom that said "by creating or viewing this baby mail, you agree to the terms of use". I went back and checked to see if it said that from the very beginning before I pressed "send" and it did not.

Now I'm not a lawyer and have never read or understood a "terms of use" in my life so I don't know if because I didn't share it, the terms do not apply or if it is now E*Trade property simply because I viewed it. All I know is I wanted out and that option did not appear available to me.

I clicked off of it quickly hoping that would make my new contract with E*Trade dissappear. But I'm pretty sure my baby is still hanging out in E*Trade Cyberland somewhere, except because I didn't share it, I have no way of knowing what she is up to or how to see her again.

So if you happen to be on the E*Trade site and find her, please be nice. She is all alone there. Tell her I'm sorry. And that I feel dumb. And that I will only upload her face to Mommy Shorts from this point forward.

In the meantime, I'm gonna take solace in the fact that they probably won't do anything with a baby who's challenging their ad team to come up with better commercials. At least for the Super Bowl.

UPDATE: An insider (see below) has just told me that E*Trade has more planned for Sunday than this spot. So I will reserve judgment. For now.