Good dadvertising includes fathers in their natural roles without the brand explicitly pointing out that you’re watching a dad that is made better by the advertised product. That’s why the Dove Men+Care “Real Moments” campaign has been a great tent pole in the circus of NCAA March Madness beer advertising.

Starring NBA all-star Dwayne Wade and ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas, the commercials show day-to-day moments of parenthood, told by these two dads.

The Super Bowl, widely regarded as a yearly who’s-who of commercials, proved once again that fathers have a couple of things to piss and moan about in the “dadvertising” world, but that little-by-little, dads are being imagined better. This year, we saw seven major commercials featuring a father in a main role. The result shows an across-the-spectrum image of fathers. This, actually, is a win for dads, believe it or not.

Here, we’ll take a look at the commercials with an honest approach, attempting to let slide what truly doesn’t matter, and getting worked up over all of the right things.

Even if you’re still sucking down leftover Halloween candy and thinking about who’s sitting next to who on Thanksgiving, the retail machine is onto its next big thing. Tis the season for retailers to make dads look like incompetent fools and walking wallets. Sears is more than happy to step up and give it a go with their commercial “Holiday Baby”.

In the 30-second spot, dad’s checking out a no-doubt incredible drill while ignoring his child. And you just won’t believe what happens next! Okay, you will.

Mommyish writer Eve Vawter kicked off the Christmas season swinging at British grocery chain Asda. Vawter did such a spectacular job cutting into Asda’s mom-focused ad that we won’t have to!

Asda’s ad, titled “Behind Every Great Christmas There’s Mum,” illustrates the image of what I’m sure both men’s and women’s rights activists (and, uh, regular father-type dudes like us) dislike: the unthanked mom carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders while the rest of the family ignores her as if she’s a domestic robot. Meanwhile, dad’s busy eating, making a mess, or ignoring the kids.

Episode 039: We’re Back, Baby!

This week’s episode covers the following stories on 8BitDad.com and around the internets for the week leading up to August 7th, 2012: Olympics, BlogHer and Chick-Fil-A / Do Fathers Get A Medal At The London Olympics? / Next Gen Dadvertising: Nexus 7 Camping Commercial / Top 5 New Dad Must-Haves

The Olympics have been on for a week now (really, only a week!), and even with all the hub-bub over tape delays, people are glued to their televisions at all hours to see the world compete in everything from archery to wrestling (there was no sport starting with a z, boo hoo). It got us wondering, as we always do elsewhere, how the Olympics would honor dads.

After all, there have got to be a whole lot of Olympians that were coached by fathers, carpooled to their practices by fathers, or at least bought equipment by fathers…right? So, that should translate into viewership and consumers – meaning dads watching the Olympics with their little hopefuls, watching all of the ads, saying “son and/or daughter – tomorrow, we’ll buy one of those products in the commercial.”

Well, we watched, and watched, and then watched some more. At times, we were watching two events picture-in-picture on television, while streaming another on our phone and another on our computer (and another on our laptop)! We sucked up almost everything the Olympics put out there, except for the really long bathroom break we took during equestrian jumping.

We found: the Olympics have definitely been sold to mom this time around, but dad hasn’t been completely forgotten. Really, there’s been one big offender that’s forgotten dads, but we saw it coming and expected it. We’ll explain.

I have been an Apple user for 27 years. I was 5 when I started on my first personal computer, the Apple IIe. But that didn’t stop me from loving the new Google Nexus 7 commercial that I caught during the recent XXX Olympic coverage. Admittedly, I thought this was an iPad 3 commercial when I noticed the whimsical, airy background music in part with the late 30s (ish), grizzly hipster dad wearing plaid. I was like, “Oh, great. How are they going to f*ck this one up.”

See, as a full-time geek, I’m not a fan of the more recent Apple commercials – starting with the “If you don’t have an iPhone, you don’t have an iPhone.” spot. They’re arrogant, elitist and douchey. I cringe every time I see one.

Google is coming up Milhouse at every turn with their advertisements. I love them. So much. However, not enough to disrupt my Apple flow. But I will give them major props starting with the Dear Sophie Chrome commercial of 2011 and the “New Dad” commercial. That “New Dad” one is simply fantastic.

So JCPenney done did it now. First, they get in trouble with an anti-gay mother’s group for hiring Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson (and not backing down). Now, JCPenney launches a Father’s Day ad featuring not one – but two dads. And the kicker is, those dads are gay. Like, gay for each other.

SRSLY, JCPenney, this is an awesome step in the right direction not just for dadvertising, but for advertising as a whole – and 8BitDad salutes you. See the full (uncropped, un8bit’d) ad after the jump.