Super Bowl Commercials: How far is too far?

I'm sure just about all of you watched the Super Bowl this weekend, and some of you didn't watch it for the football.  If you don't care about football, you watch the Super Bowl for the commercials.  These aren't just any old commercials, the Super Bowl is the mack-daddy of advertising.  Companies pull out all of the stops to secure a 30 second slot on that Sunday night.  A successful commercial will be the talk of the town; and a flop can cause companies to stall.  In the recent years, each commercial tries to go bigger than the last, with some being drop dead hilarious and others leaving you saying, "Huh?"

The commercial that had the most buzz about it pre-Super Bowl was without a doubt the Kim Kardashian Sketchers Shape-Ups ad.  Kim Kardashian is, along with Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie, famous for being famous.  She's got a TV show, a shoe collection, perfume, and her own Silly Bandz, yet she really has no marketable skills, except for being pretty.

This commercial was, frankly, absolutely ridiculous.  The only reason people were so excited about it was because Kim was not wearing a lot of clothing, and people think she's hot.  The whole concept is that if you buy these shoes, you won't have to have a personal trainer to keep you fit.  All she did was act like she was having sex with a dude, then walk around some, then compliment another dude on his ugly shoes.  It is just me, or was everyone else confused?  Advertisements in the past 20 years or so have gone from informing people about the good qualities of product X to trying to grab people's attention, even if it has nothing to do with the product.

This commercial blurs the line between being sexy but appropriate and being plain inappropriate.  The sexual innuendos are so overpowering that this commercial could never be played during regular prime-time hours.  Yet Sketchers just paid a lot of money to have it shown during the 4th quarter of the biggest football game in America.  Why?  Because that football game is watched mostly by men over the age of 18.  And what gets a man more excited than a slightly sweaty Kim Kardashian?  Advertising companies need to focus more on the product and less on getting a reaction from a commercial.  People might actually buy their products.