While everyone's eyes were peeled at Peyton Manning during the Super Bowl this past Sunday, the ads gave the evening another Tennessee connection. Garmin, a GPS navigation systems maker, debuted their first Super Bowl ad Sunday. It is a spin on the Godzilla-style monster films and features a driver who battles "Maposaurus". A hero uses a Garmin-made navigation device to save the day, and in the process becomes "Garmin Man". However, to those of us who are here in the Upper Cumberland area of Tennessee, "Maposaurus" just might be our hero of the two.
If you look at the monster, a few county and city names are visible. The most prominent of the names is my own hometown of Cookeville, Tennessee; home to the college I attend, Tennessee Tech University. Some may say, "How do you know it is your Cookeville on the beast." I know because of the other names on the creature. On its head read the names PUTNAM (of which Cookeville is the county seat), JACKSON, and WHITE, which are all counties that border Putnam. Also mentioned are Center Hill Lake and the Cumberland River, all local water bodies. If that isn't enough, the creature's body shows other Middle Tennessee locations on it. The left arm shows "Columbia", which is a city south of Nashville, and its chest seems to show Hamilton County, where Chattanooga is located.
I live in Overton County just minutes away from Cookeville, but I consider myself a "Cookevillian", as my family has been pretty busy in this town since we moved down here 11 years ago. Plus, I am now a student here and I know many Cookeville-area natives, so I feel at home in this town approaching 30,000 in population. So, as you could expect, I am excited and proud that my hometown has been featured in front of millions of eyes during the biggest sporting event of the year. During a class at Tennessee Tech yesterday, I heard a fellow student say she heard on local radio about Cookeville being featured on a Super Bowl ad. I didn't find out until today what she was talking about. Cookeville's Herald-Citizen newspaper put the story on the cover with a photo similar to the one above. That article is among the links you can visit below.
"Super Bowl ad puts Cookeville area on the map - literally" Cookeville, Tenn. Herald Citizen
CNN Money's look at 2007 Super Bowl ads
TrailBlazer Adventure Racing Club Forum on "Maposaurus"
No comments:
Post a Comment