Superbowl-ads.com Article Archive

Companies that spent big bucks to air advertisements during the Super Bowl did not necessarily see those dollars translate into more visits to their Web sites this year.

Traffic to Super Bowl advertisers’ Web sites saw no dramatic increase during the game this year, according to a figures released Monday by Akamai Technologies (Nasdaq: AKAM), a Cambridge, Mass.-based content delivery network company. Sites averaged between 150,000 to 200,000 visitors each hour, about the same amount of traffic seen in previous weeks.

Akamai delivered the Web sites and advertising content for approximately half of the companies that aired commercials during the Super Bowl, according to company spokesperson Jeff Young. This year’s advertisments featured fewer commercials with so-called cliff hangers, which drive viewers to a company’s Web site to see the conclusion of the ad, Young said.

“These numbers reflect there wasn’t as much of a push toward the Web this year,” he said. “Many advertisers didn’t even include a Web site or Web component in their ad this year, which perhaps indicates people may be more comfortable now finding them online.”

Web traffic is expected to increase over the course of the day Monday as people head back to the office and check out ads online.

“These ads are so popular people want to replay them again and again online,” said Young.

via bizjournals.com 

Hitwise, announced the Super Bowl XLII advertiser websites with the largest increases in market share of visits on Super Bowl Sunday (Feb. 3, 2008) were Hyundai (www.hyundaigenesis.com), up 1450 percent versus Saturday, Feb. 2, 2008, Paramount’s Ironman Movie (www.ironmanmovie.com), up 800 percent and GoDaddy.com, which increased 616 percent.

Labels: HitWise

via webanalyticsworld.net

NEW YORK The highest rated commercial in Sunday’s down-to-the-wire Super Bowl battle was an ad for Victoria’s Secret, according to Nielsen analysis released today.

The spot was seen by 103.7 million people at 9:44 p.m., near the dramatic conclusion to the game, which aired on Fox. (Viewing numbers provided are based on live plus same day DVR playback viewing.) The average audience throughout the game was a record-setting 97.5 million people in the U.S.

This year’s Super Bowl outcome was decided in the last minute of play and the fourth quarter was the best time for advertisers to be in the contest, at least from a size-of-audience standpoint. Nielsen reports that the top 10 highest rated commercials all exceeded 100 million viewers and all aired after 9 p.m.

The most played-back spot of the game was a Disney ad for the upcoming movie Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, which was viewed by 4.1 million on DVR playback, the ratings company said.

The most buzzed about ad online (per Nielsen BuzzMetrics) was Pepsi’s spot with Justin Timberlake, depicting the pop star’s “magnetic” appeal, accounting for 6.7 percent of Super Bowl online discussion on Sunday. Among Super Bowl advertisers, the fastest-growing Web site was Fox Interactive Media’s MySpace.com/SuperBowlAds, which more than doubled its usual traffic with 900,000 unique visitors.

This year’s Super Bowl aired 50 minutes and 50 seconds of commercial time, including Fox program promos, Nielsen said. Fifty-two unique brands aired commercials for a total of 84 advertisements.

There was a tie for the second-highest rated spot of the game, between an ad for Pespi’s Amp energy drink (man clamps battery cables to his nipples) and a promo for Fox’s American Idol. Those spots aired in succession right after the Victoria’s Secret spot at 9:45 p.m., and garnered an audience of 103.6 million viewers.

E-Trade’s talking baby/clown spot was the fourth most viewed spot of the night, airing at 9:20 p.m. and collecting an audience of 103 million viewers. Back-to-back commercials that ran at 9:26 p.m. — the Bud Light spot with Will Ferrell and a Hyundai Genesis ad — tied for fifth, both seen by 101.5 million viewers.

After Narnia, the most played-back spot was an American Idol promo at 7:39 p.m. (4,069,000). Placing third was a Sobe Life Water spot (dancing lizards) at 7:24 p.m (4,049,000).

via adweek.com

RESTON, VA – comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released the results of its annual Super Bowl post-game survey. The survey of 1,139 U.S. Internet users who watched Super Bowl XLII, which featured the New York Giants’ improbable victory over the previously undefeated New England Patriots, was conducted on February 3-4, 2008. With two large market teams and the Patriots’ quest for a perfect season on the line, the television broadcast averaged a record 97 million viewers throughout the game, making the event even more important than usual for this year’s advertisers.

Anheuser-Busch Reigns as King of Ads

The most popular advertiser during the Super Bowl was Anheuser-Busch, whose commercials for Bud and Bud Light (including comedian Will Ferrell’s offbeat spot) scored well amongst viewers, with nearly half indicating they would most like to see the commercials again. Beverage spots were particularly popular this year, with a large percentage of respondents saying they would also like to see ads for Pepsi (28 percent) and Coca Cola (25 percent) again.

Q: Which of this year’s Super Bowl advertisers’ ads would you like to see again? (Select 3)
February 3-4, 2008;
Source: comScore, Inc.

Anheuser-Busch (Bud/Bud Light)
49%

Pepsi
28%

Coca Cola
25%

FedEx
18%

Bridgestone
17%

1 in 8 Viewers Watched Super Bowl Ads Online

The Internet has become a key part of following the Super Bowl on game day, for both game-related and ad-related purposes. For game-related purposes, 11 percent of respondents indicated they used the Internet to monitor stats and stories related to the game, while 3 percent said they went online to place bets on the game.

The Super Bowl has also become an important vehicle for cross-media advertising. Though the ads are viewed on TV, many of them direct their audience to a Web site for related information, content, or promotions. This year, 13 percent of respondents said that they watched a Super Bowl ad online after the game. A similar 13 percent also said that they visited an advertiser Web site after the Super Bowl. Of those who visited an advertiser’s Web site, 38 percent said they visited GoDaddy.com, while 22 percent visited Coca Cola’s site and 21 percent visited Pepsi’s site.

Hyundai Does Most to Help its Brand, SalesGenie.com the Least

Super Bowl ads are often a risky venture for advertisers due to the increased attention and scrutiny they receive, not to mention the reported $2.7 million price tag for a 30-second spot. Though most ads elicit a highly positive impression of the brand being advertised, in some cases advertisers can actually incur damage to their brand. Respondents were asked whether the Super Bowl ads they saw improved or hurt their impression of the brands being advertised, and each of this year’s advertisers did see some level of brand improvement.

Hyundai’s advertisement for the Genesis had the most positive impact on its brand, with 46 percent of respondents indicating it helped the brand, while just 1 percent said it damaged the brand, giving it a net improvement score of 45 percent. Anheuser-Busch once again got an overwhelmingly positive response, while Bridgestone earned the third highest net improvement score with its humorous ad featuring Richard Simmons.

Q: Which Super Bowl advertisers’ ads improved or damaged your impression of the brand in any way?

February 3-4, 2008;
Source: comScore, Inc.

Highest Improvement
Improved
Damaged
Net Improvement Score

Hyundai
46%
1%
45%<

Anheuser-Busch (Bud/Bud Light)
44%
2%
42%

Bridgestone
42%
3%
39%

Lowest Improvement
Improved
Damaged
Net Improvement Score

SalesGenie.com
21%
18%
3%

GoDaddy.com
26%
13%
13%

Under Armour
30%
12%
18%

*based on minimum 100 survey responses

Meanwhile, SalesGenie.com had the highest “brand damage” score, but still managed a small net improvement score. Perennially controversial Super Bowl advertiser GoDaddy.com also drew a high negative response with its racy ad featuring race car driver Danica Patrick.

“Anheuser-Busch’s performance in this study reinforces the persuasive power of combining likeability with the right messaging,” said Barry Krause, CEO of Persuasion Arts & Sciences, a new model agency. “Regardless of how many hits they receive, Sales Genie, on the other hand, missed an opportunity by turning off almost as many people as they turned on.”

via comscore.com

By Bruce Horovitz, Laura Petrecca, Theresa Howard and Erin Kutz, USA TODAY

The days of Super Bowl ads littered with celebrities may be numbered. Celebs of various sorts showed up in 18 ads this year, but not one cracked the top five in USA TODAY’s Ad Meter, an exclusive real-time consumer rating of the ads.

Shut out of even the top 10: Pepsi’s (PEP) high-priced Justin Timberlake, Carmen Electra for Ice Breakers, Shaquille O’Neal for Vitaminwater and Richard Simmons and Alice Cooper for Bridgestone. In the game’s celeb heyday of the 1980s, Michael Jackson could make a Pepsi ad an event, and Michael Jordan took ads into rare air. On the latest Super Sunday, some celeb ads even crashed.

How celebrity ads ranked in the 2008 Ad Meter:

No. 7: Charlie Brown, Coca-Cola

The top-rated celebrity in the game was a balloon: cartoon character and a perennial loser Charlie Brown. In this ad for Coke (KO), a Thanksgiving Day parade balloon of the Peanuts character beats balloons of Underdog and Family Guy‘s baby Stewie to grab a giant floating Coke bottle. Charlie helped Coke trump Pepsi for top soft-drink in Ad Meter.

No. 10: Naomi Campbell, SoBe Life Water

Supermodel Campbell, dancing to Michael Jackson’s Thriller, was upstaged by gyrating lizards. The lizards also made some viewers think the ad was for Geico, which has a gecko mascot. “Geico has the lizard market cornered,” says USA TODAY reader Michelle Couwenhoven. “SoBe not so much.”

No. 13: Shaq, Glacéau Vitaminwater

Shaquille O’Neal looks huge. The horse looks tiny. But that one-trick pony of a sight gag didn’t gallop Glacéau Vitaminwater — now a Coca-Cola brand — into Ad Meter’s top 10.

Give Shaq some credit, though: No stunt doubles were used in the making of this ad, even though just about everyone involved (including maybe the horse) wanted to hire one.

“I’m an all-purpose man,” O’Neal told USA TODAY. “I’m pretty good at riding the horse, being from Texas and all.”

No. 16: Cooper/Simmons: Bridgestone

Let’s see. Besides a raccoon or possum, what creatures might appear in the road in a night driver’s headlights? A deer, of course — and rocker Alice Cooper, above, and exercise guru Richard Simmons. Ironically, Bridgestone scored far better — No. 3 — with an ad starring just forest critters screaming than it did with putting these celebs in the woods.

No. 21: Justin Timberlake, Pepsi

Pepsi
Timberlake goes on a wild ride.

This Pepsi ad was proof that Big Stars can’t always guarantee Big Ads. In the spot, Timberlake is inexplicably yanked into a series of hazards by a young woman sucking her Pepsi through a straw. One laugh: Timberlake gets caught on mailbox post, and his crotch gets crunched not once, but three painful times. Cosmic punishment, perhaps, for his hand in Janet Jackson’s infamous “wardrobe malfunction.”

No. 23: Adriana Lima, Victoria’s Secret

It sounds like a recipe for love: sultry supermodel Adriana Lima in lingerie with Brenda Lee’s I’m in the Mood for Love playing in the background. But it was a so-so turn-on for Ad Meter panelists. The ad was shot in one take, and Limas told USA TODAY her instruction was to “think about your boyfriend watching the Super Bowl and you are trying to get his attention.”

Lima tried her darnedest, but it was an unusually exciting game.

No. 28: Barkley/Wade, T-Mobile

Basketball all-star Dwyane Wade can’t get Charles Barkley off his case. No matter where Wade goes, Barkley finds him on his cellphone. Problem: The ad goes on for 60 seconds instead of 30. Ad Meter panelists wanted to hang up on it. So did USA TODAY reader Richard Shapiro of Tampa, who said that the ad “made it very clear to me NOT to get a T-Mobile phone.”

No. 38: Will Ferrell, Bud Light

Anheuser-Busch
Ferrell shoots, misses.

Will Ferrell was a hit on Saturday Night Live. Ditto for his string of films, including Blades of Glory and Talladega Nights. In this Bud Light commercial, however, based on his character in his upcoming basketball flick, Semi-Pro, Ferrell shot an air ball with the Ad Meter panel.

No. 44: Carmen Electra, Ice Breakers

Carmen Electra apparently is supposed to be funny in this poorly ranked spot in which a fan impresses her (and upsets her bodyguards) by offering her some Ice Breakers Ice Cubes gum. He is wrestled to the ground for his troubles.

The Ad Meter panelists were less impressed — and forgot to laugh. Maybe they could find some comic relief in her Carmen Electra’s Aerobic Striptease exercise videos.

No. 48: Danica Patrick, GoDaddy.com

Race car driver Danica Patrick may have crashed and burned what seemed a promising ad career by showing up in this oh-so-tacky Go Daddy commercial — actually a promo to go online for the even tackier “real” ad rejected by Fox. She unzips the top of her racing suit, hinting there’s more online. There’s not — only a tasteless joke involving a live rodent. Wave her off the track.

Some of the faces in the crowd

No. 8: Missy Elliott, Diet Pepsi Max. The singer led a celeb-filled cast, including LL Cool J, Macy Gray and Busta Rhymes. The premise: Diet Pepsi Max, with ginseng and extra caffeine, cures nodding off. The ad, with its pumping dance track (What is Love), perked up Ad Meter panelists.

No. 9: Faux Ugly Betty: Planters. Christa Woomer, 32, is not America Ferrera of Ugly Betty, but the reference was clear. The mono-browed faux-Betty who sent lads swooning to the tune of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You also outsmarted the beautiful people. “Pretty girls have their place,” she says, “but it’s wonderful to show a little less glamorous character. Most of us don’t look like Victoria’s Secret models.” They can, however, finish 14 spots higher in Ad Meter than a real one.

No. 12: Carlos Mencia, Bud Light. Mencia is the famous face, but his co-stars steal the ad as immigrants he tutors in picking up women.

No. 18: Chester Pitts, National Football League. It was an ad for the self-promoting NFL, but this endearing story of a grocery bagger becoming an NFL star scored at least a field goal in Ad Meter.

No. 29: Bill Frist/James Carville, Coca-Cola. Coke figured election-minded viewers would love seeing the former GOP senator bond with a famous Democrat over a Coke. Maybe next year Coke should try George Bush and Al Gore.

No. 42: Alex Rocco, Audi. This parody of the horse-head scene from The Godfather may have jarred film fans because Rocco was a different character in the 1972 film. Then again, a lot of viewers weren’t born when the film was made.

- Mike Bierne

CHICAGO Get ready for more Jackie Moon pitches for Bud Light.

The improvisational endorsement from Will Ferrell’s character in New Line Cinema’s release of Semi Pro initially was intended to be an online short. But Anheuser-Busch executives decided to put the ad from DDB, New York and Chicago, on Fox’s Super Bowl telecast during the fourth quarter.

“We agreed with Will’s team a couple weeks ago and ourselves that it would be better for the Super Bowl because it’s an opportunity for a few more jokes; it was a great call,” said Bob Lachky, chief creative officer and evp, global industry development.

More Bud Light TV spots featuring Ferrell as the owner, player and coach for the Flint, Mich., Tropics basketball team will air on spot and national programming leading to the Feb. 29 debut of the film. The brand’s previous movie tie-in, Wedding Crashers, was released by New Line during 2005 and also starred Ferrell.

A-B’s ad featuring a Dalmatian as the personal trainer of a Clydesdale horse vying to make the Budweiser pull team was voted most popular Super Bowl ad on USA Today‘s AdMeter.

The brewer’s ads also got twice as much discussion — most of it positive — as No. 2 brand Audi, per Cymfony, a brand-monitoring firm in Watertown, Mass.

Audi’s agency, Venables Bell & Partners, San Francisco, re-created the horse head scene from The Godfather in a spot that featured the R8 roadster. As of Monday, only five other companies — Pepsi, Coca-Cola, GoDaddy, Bridgestone and E-Trade — collected significant enough online discussion about their ads worth measuring in the Cymfony study.

“For all of Anheuser-Busch experience with mobile, they didn’t do a whole lot of things different from last year,” said Jim Nail, Cymfony’s CMO. “Their strategy is still don’t show all that much before the game.” The company’s teaser ads on YouTube before the game only got about 6,000 views versus 350,000 for Justin Timberlake’s Pepsi ad, Nail said, but A-B is “on top with social media discussion.”

A-B’s Super Bowl spots will get about six more weeks of viewing rotation.

|Christine Daniels

Giant carrier pigeons terrorize a towering skyscraper. Justin Timberlake is thrown onto the street and dragged into traffic. One beer drinker torches a romantic dinner with his flame-throwing breather and another gets sucked into a jet engine.

What did the creators of this year’s Super Bowl commercials know about the fate that awaited the New England Patriots in Sunday’s Super Bowl? 

Mayhem and destruction were overriding themes in the commercial barrage that was interrupted by long stretches of the Patriots spinning their wheels during the New York Giants’ 17-14 upset victory, tripping up New England’s quest for a 19-0 season at the final leg. Perfection is never the goal of these ads. Far from it. Shock value remains a popular objective, but try as these ads did, nothing plugging liquid refreshment, cars, tires or websites approached the edge-of-the-seat surprise that accompanied Eli Manning’s late touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress.

And nothing scripted by the people at CareerBuilder.com did more for the concept of career building than the Giants’ Manning.

Consider precisely what Manning accomplished with his 19-for-34, 255-yard, two-touchdown passing performance in Glendale, Ariz. He not only kept pace with the tough act carved out last year by one of the game’s greatest quarterbacks (his older brother Peyton, who defeated the Chicago Bears in 2007), but also upstaged another (Tom Brady, who had been 3-0 in Super Bowls) on the same field.

Eli was like the Clydesdale in the Budweiser commercial. One year, he’s cut from the squad. The next, he makes the grade, thanks to perseverance, faith and some unusual coaching.

(One difference between the personal-trainer Dalmatian in the commercial and Giants Coach Tom Coughlin: The Dalmatian never changed its spots. Today, however, Coughlin’s upgraded resume includes the line: Yes, he can win the big ones after all.)

It was this kind of Super Bowl: The Miami Heat (9-36) had a much better day than the Patriots. Two of the telecast’s better commercials featured members of the less-than-lukewarm Heat. Shaquille O’Neal as a late-charging, physics-defying winning jockey was the thrust of a Glaceau Vitaminwater spot. In another ad, for T-Mobile, viewers suffered along with Dwyane Wade as he was pestered by never-ending phone calls from Charles Barkley.

via articles.latimes.com

Peter Hartlaub, Chronicle Pop Culture Critic

This was the eighth Super Bowl of the 21st century, but if you were only paying attention to the commercials, you might have thought it was the 1970s, ’80s or ’90s.

It wasn’t just older themes that played during the between-plays breaks in Super Bowl XLII, such as Budweiser’s Dalmatians and Clydesdales, which have been commercial stars during the big game for decades. Sunday’s Super Bowl ads also referred to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” the Andrea True disco song “More, More, More” and the “Saturday Night Live” skit that led to the 1998 movie “A Night at the Roxbury.” And that was just in the first half.

Nostalgia was definitely the way to go for many of the top advertising agencies that handled the multimillion-dollar accounts for Super Bowl regulars such as Anheuser-Busch, Coke and Pepsi – and newcomers including Tide. But it was also part of a general theme of playing it safe that was pervasive this year. After Janet Jackson’s exposed nipple shocked the world in 2004 and Budweiser featured a chainsaw-wielding madman in 2007, this year’s ads were almost all fun and fit for the family.

“Less brave. No risk,” wrote Publicis US advertising executive Bob Moore, who was live blogging on SuperAdFreak.com. “More talking animals.”

As for the quality, it was a decent year, with several memorable ads and only a couple of catastrophes, including some Chinese stereotype pandas for a Salesgenie.com commercial that seems most likely to result in the first Super Bowl ad apology of the season. (Or maybe not. A Salesgenie exec boasted that his commercials were intentionally bad. In this game, some companies want negative attention.)

Around the blogosphere, the public seemed to be split, with many of the armchair critics acting underwhelmed with the output – while several experts who write about the advertising world suggested it was a pretty good year.

Standouts included a nostalgia-saturated Coke commercial, where giant parade balloons of Underdog and “Family Guy” baby Stewie duke it out over New York for an inflatable bottle of Coke, before it gets swiped by a Charlie Brown balloon. (The special effects were seamless – and after losing the football all those years, it was cathartic to see Chuck come out ahead.) A Tide ad with a talking stain was short, cute and memorable, as was Justin Timberlake getting dragged all over the city for Diet Pepsi Max.

But while the critics like style, the masses often go for the lowest common denominator. Planters Nuts will likely have a fan favorite with its commercial that focuses on a homely girl with a unibrow – who uses cashews as a perfume. And for the second time in four years, a Bud Light advertisement ended with a guy’s date getting torched by fire. At least this time the culprit wasn’t a flatulent horse.

This was also the year for late finishers, which seemed at times to match the thrilling come-from-behind 17-14 victory by the New York Giants. The Coke parade-balloons commercial came at the start of the fourth quarter, which is often a dumping ground for advertisements. And Amp energy drink may have stolen the show with a shirtless overweight guy who hooks up battery cables to his nipples and jump-starts a truck.

That was arguably the raciest ad of the afternoon, and even it had an element of nostalgia – with the Amp guy dancing to the 1986 Salt-n-Pepa song “Push It.” Other music from the past included the 1979 song “Escape (The Pina Colada song)” and “Thriller” from 1984, which featured lizards mimicking the choreography from that song’s video. (Which would have been a hit if we hadn’t all seen the same idea executed better in last year’s viral YouTube video of prisoners in the Philippines doing the same dance.)

The songs weren’t the only blasts from the past. Among the older movies that inspired ads were “The Godfather” for Audi – complete with a cameo by actor Alex Rocco, who played Moe Greene in the movie – and the “Night at the Roxbury” skit for Pepsi, with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo by original head-bobber Chris Kattan. There were also a couple of talking baby ads, which seemed left over from the Baby Bob commercials from the dotcom era.

On the SFGate Culture Blog, where readers were commenting on a live blog of the advertisements, opinions of the quality of the 2008 ads seemed split between good and bad, sometimes in the same post.

“I agree Salesgenie ads were shameful and the baby ads were creepy beyond belief,” posted one viewer. “Can’t believe so much money was wasted. The pigeon ad and Pepsi max bopping heads were funny though.”

And with the game remaining interesting until the final seconds, for once the advertisements didn’t even have a chance of stealing the show.

“Wow,” wrote another poster. “For the first time in many years the game is more interesting than the commercials!”

 

– To read comments about the Super Bowl commercials, go to the Culture Blog at sfgate.com.

 

The memorable and the squirm-inducing

Three best ads

1. Coke parade balloons: Three cartoon character parade balloons float over New York and fight it out for a bottle of Coke, with Charlie Brown coming out ahead. The visuals were great, it was very sweet and people will remember the product.

2. FedEx pigeons: The competition still delivers packages with carrier pigeons, including some that have Terminator-style cyborg eyesight (yet another 1980s reference) and other giant ones that can throw a car through a window. Very funny and clever.

3. Tide “My Talking Stain”: A job applicant gives his credentials, but all the interviewer can focus on is the gibberish-talking stain on his shirt. This was Tide’s first ad and it hit it out of the park, with something understated and memorable that tied in well to the brand.

Three worst ads

1. Salesgenie.com talking panda: A cartoon panda speaks in a Chinese accent that even Rosie O’Donnell would find offensive – which apparently was all part of the plan to prove that bad publicity is better than none.

2. GoDaddy.com Danica Patrick: GoDaddy once again plays the “we’re-so-controversial-we-got-banned” card, directing viewers to its Web site to see the company’s rejected ad. That commercial is very lame, adding little to the “beaver” joke from “The Naked Gun” while failing in its tease to show Patrick in something skimpy.

3. Doritos “Message from Your Heart”: If we wanted to see some singer we’ve never heard of playing an acoustic guitar, we’d skip the Super Bowl and go to a local coffee shop. Doritos is generally solid, but this was a miss.

- Peter Hartlaub

Online resources

To see all the Super Bowl ads: www.myspace.com/superbowlads

 

To read what other viewers had to say about the Super Bowl commercials, go to the Culture Blog on www.sfgate.com

 

Ranking Super Bowl ads

BEST: Coca-Cola’s commercial featured a tussle between cartoon character balloons.

WORST: Salesgenie.com’s Chinese stereotype pandas should prompt an apology.

via sfgate.com

by Doug Aamoth 

Something is wrong here. TiVo grabs data from how many times the pause and rewind buttons are pressed during the Super Bowl and makes the most frequently shifted ads the “top ten” ads.

If you watched the game, though, you’ll agree with me that there’s no way the Dorito’s “Mouse Trap” or the Ice Breakers “Carmen Electra” spot should be anywhere close to the top ten ads. I can, however, see people rewinding each of the aforementioned ads and saying, “What the hell was that? Someone spent $3 million on THAT? Rewind it again, I can’t tell what the hell just happened.”

So please, TiVo, let’s not call these the “top ten rated commercials” just because a couple of them didn’t make any sense and had to be rewound a few dozen times. Full list after the jump.

The top ten rated commercials of this year’s game were:

• E-Trade: “Baby” (1)            
• Pepsi Co: “Justin Timberlake”         
• Doritos: “Mouse Trap” (user-generated)              
• Coca-Cola: “James Carville and Bill Frist”            
• Ice Breakers: “Carmen Electra”             
• Bridgestone: “Headlights”          
• Bud Light: “Cavemen”               
• Vitamin Water: “Horse Race”        
• Cars.com Plan B: “Witch Doctor”              
• Life Water: “Thriller”

FedEx, “Pigeons”: After a first quarter that was filled with lame or underwhelming spots, this was the first to draw big laughs from my Bowl-viewing contingent.

Doritos, “Mouse Trap”: I’m not 100 percent sure why, but my tiny focus group went wild for this one. When people are yelling for you to pause the game and rewind a commercial, that’s a successful spot. As one of my friends put it, “The mouse repeatedly punching him in the face was a nice touch.”

Tide to Go, “Interview”: More clever than ha-ha funny, this one made its point well. Or maybe I just enjoyed it because I went home with nacho-cheese drips all down my shirt front.

T-Mobile, “Fave 5″: I just loved this one. Funny from start to finish, and pleasingly random. “Do you like popsicles? Have you ever been to Amsterdam?”

E*Trade, “Baby Banking”: Not much to say, really. It just got laughs. Clowns are creepy!

NFL, “Mr Oboe”: Far and away the best non-humor spot of the night.

via portfolio.com

TiVo published again the top Super Bowl Commercials based on when TiVo subscribers hit the pause and replay button.

E-Trade‘s Baby won the top Super Bowl Ad crown this year according to TiVo users. Justin Timberlake for Pepsi took second place and the Doritos spot featuring a mouse trap took third. The USA Today Ad meter has the Budweiser ad with the Rocky Horse as top Super Bowl ad.

TiVo’s audience measurement analysis is based on aggregated data from a sample of approximately 10,000 anonymous households with the Emmy-award winning TiVo service. TiVo viewership information gauges the interest in programming content by measuring the percentage of the TiVo audience watching in “play” speed.

The top ten rated commercials of this year’s game were:

• E-Trade: “Baby” (1)            
• Pepsi Co: “Justin Timberlake”         
• Doritos: “Mouse Trap” (user-generated)              
• Coca-Cola: “James Carville and Bill Frist“            
• Ice Breakers: “Carmen Electra”             
• Bridgestone: “Headlights”          
• Bud Light: “Cavemen”               
• Vitamin Water: “Horse Race”        
• Cars.com Plan B: “Witch Doctor”              
• Life Water: “Thriller” 

via i4u.com

The hype. The title. The glory. It all came down to one game. This year, it was the battle between the “un-beatens” and the underdogs. In one of the biggest upsets in NFL history, the Giants outplayed the Patriots 17-14 in Super Bowl XLII. Whether you are a Patriots or Giants fan, viewers could find common ground in one aspect of the big game: the commercials.

Super Bowl commercials have always provided entertainment and an avenue of humor for viewers. Companies spent an average of $2.7 million for a 30 second spot, according to The Associated Press.

Who can forget Budweiser’s monumental “Whassssupp” commercial? People were greeting each other with this phrase for weeks after this advertisement was aired. Then there was the racy godaddy.com commercial, which aired last year, that sparked months worth of controversy.

The 2008 Super Bowl commercials had a plethora of celebrities, but it is questionable as to whether or not the advertisements lived up to the comical expectations.

In the Diet Pepsi commercial featuring Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, LL Cool J and others, all of them acted as bobble heads, rocking to the beat of Haddaway’s “What is Love.” Overall the Pepsi advertisement was a pretty convincing commercial.

Will Ferrell played his character in his new movie called “Semi-Pro” for a Bud Light commercial and later on in the programming, in an unexpected spot for “Life Water,” Naomi Campbell did a rendition of Thriller with a group of lizards. Charles Barkley and Dwayne Wade made an appearance in a T-Mobile advertisement, while Justin Timberlake showcased his stunts in a Pepsi ad.

The Doritos spot was undoubtedly one of the funnier commercials, with a man dressed in a mouse suit beating up a man building a mousetrap. Adrianna Lima posed in a seductive Valentine’s ad for Victoria’s Secret with a football in hand, luring male and female audiences away from their surroundings and in to the television.

Danielle Balser, a 2nd-semester biology major, enjoyed the Bridgestone Tires squirrel commercial, where a squirrel and woman scream in sync as her car drives towards the animal, swirving just in time to avoid the squirrel and showcase the tires abilities.

“It was funny to see the animal and woman screaming back and forth,” Balser said.

There was a 30-second spotlight on George Clooney’s newest movie, “Leatherheads,” written by former Sports Illustrated writer Rick Riley, about football in the1920s. Similarly, the new action movie, “Wanted” about a league of assassins was also introduced.

“The first commercial should have set a high standard for the rest of the commercials, not the opposite,” said Brian Kelly, a 4th-semester physical therapy major. “The Budweiser commercial about the fire was not funny at all. That commercial did nothing for their product. Lucky for Budweiser, they had funnier commercials to make up for that one, like the Carlos Mencia dating one.”

Lauren Albert, a 4th-semester accounting major, personally loved the Shaquille O’Neal horse racing, commercial for Vitamin Water, commenting that “anytime Shaq smiles, we all smile!”

For those of you who missed any commercials or do not want to wait for them to be aired again, you can check all of them out at myspace.com/superbowlads.

via dailycampus.com

By Paul Thomasch
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Advertisers couldn’t have asked for much more out of the Super Bowl XLII on Sunday.

A nail-biting 17-14 victory by the New York Giants over the New England Patriots likely kept most of the audience glued to the television — and the commercials — until the final seconds.

And while the drama may have been higher on the field than during the breaks, the advertisements nevertheless provided a cast of characters that included supermodels, a sleazy jock, a inspirational horse and a cheeky daytrader in diapers.

This year, the Super Bowl took on even more significance than usual for advertisers, as they tried to push beer, soda, sneakers and cars to consumers stymied by an economic downturn.

Advertisers, moreover, have lately found it more difficult to promote their products and brands over broadcast television, as a strike by Hollywood screenwriters against the major studios has meant fewer hits — and smaller audiences — for

TV.

This year has the potential to have more of an impact, said Derek Rucker, assistant professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management, which runs a Super Bowl advertising review. “You don’t have as much fresh programming, so this has the potential to generate more interest for the event and the advertising.”

Broadcast by Fox, the Giants will almost surely draw the biggest TV audience of the year, and because of the marquee matchup, could draw the biggest Super Bowl audience of all-time. Prices to buy a 30-second spot averaged $2.7 million.

Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc., the largest U.S. brewer, was again a big presence in the game, with its usual parade of lighthearted Bud Light spots, including one featuring Will Ferrell as sleazy over-the-hill jock Jackie Moon who proclaims the beer “refreshes the palate and the loins.”

Even at parties, “when people see Will Ferrell on the screen, they turn up the volume,” said Robert Reiser, Chief Creative Officer of Cossette Communications in New York.

Anheuser-Busch also rolled out one of its traditional Clydesdale advertisements, this one with a “Rocky” theme that had a dalmation training an overlooked horse.

Celebrities also turned up in a number of spots for PepsiCo Inc., with singer Justin Timberlake, supermodel Naomi Campbell, and baseball player Derek Jeter cropping up in spots.

Rival beverage maker Coca-Cola Co returned to the Super Bowl for a second consecutive year, with one commercial set among floats at a parade in New York City, and another set in the world of Washington D.C. politics with Republican Bill Frist and Democrat James Carville.

Victoria’s Secret also returned to the game, with a relatively tame commercial showing supermodel Adriana Lima flirtatiously playing with a football.

Planters took the opposite course, featuring a decidedly unattractive woman who nonetheless wins over a parade of men after dabbing herself with a Planters cashew.

Other spots included an Audi commercial that played on “The Godfather”; an E-Trade commercial featuring a daytrading toddler with an attitude; a futuristic, cinematic advertisement for Under Armour; and a Garmin commercial with Napoleon driving a Mini.

One spot popular with experts, critics and viewers came from Fedex. In it, an office uses a competing delivery service that relies on carrier pigeons, until, that is, the pigeons begin destroying everything in the city.

“Our panel reacted very well to that,” said Kellogg’s Rucker. “Even though Fedex didn’t appear right away, it was clear that it was going to be a Fedex commercial. It was nicely done.”

Doritos received a less enthusiastic reception for its commercial that played on the popularity of talent shows and content created by viewers. The commercial was built around a song by Kina Grannis, a singer who won a Doritos-sponsored contest calling for unsigned artists to submit an original song for the Super Bowl.

But the advertisement had little — or nothing — to do with the brand, experts said.

“That’s not the way to do it. Doritos just isn’t associated very well with unknown musicians,” said Pat McGuinness, Director of Creative Content at Trumpet Advertising in New Orleans.

via reuters.com

Anheuser-Busch’s Clydesdales and Bridgestone Tires score with viewers. Salesgenie and GM fail to impress.

By Ben Rooney, CNNMoney.com staff writer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The New York Giants’ victory over the New England Patriots Sunday night was one of the biggest upsets in Super Bowl history, but the advertising effort during the big game was not quite as inspiring.

“We had a mixed bag of commercials this year. Some were really strong and some hard to follow,” said Tim Calkins, a clinical professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

According to preliminary results from Adbowl, a Web site that polls opinions of Super Bowl ads, Anheuser-Busch’s (BUD, Fortune 500) Budweiser commercial featuring one of the brewer’s trademark Clydesdales being “trained” by a Dalmatian came in as the most popular.

Bridgestone Firestone also fared well, according to Spotbowl, another Web site dedicated to ranking Super Bowl ads. The tiremaker was ranked first, with an ad about tires avoiding a squirrel in the road, and fifth, with an ad about tires avoiding fitness guru Richard Simmons and singer Alice Cooper, on the site’s list of top spots early Monday.

The stakes couldn’t have been higher for companies advertising in this year’s big game. The average cost for one 30-second spot during Super Bowl XLII was $2.7 million, according to Fox, the News Corp (NWS.A).-owned network that broadcast the Super Bowl.

But the sheer number of people watching the Super Bowl can make the investment worthwhile if the ad is effective at capturing people’s attention. Last year, the big game was the highest rated TV show in the U.S. with more than 93 million people tuning in, according to Nielsen

Automakers Hyundai and General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) both ranked near the bottom of Spotbowl’s list.

SalesGenie.com’s ad was among the least effective Super Bowl ads, according to Calkins. The online provider of sales leads and mailing lists aired a commercial that was widely regarded as the worst of last year’s Super Bowl ads.

Several advertising experts said that Procter & Gamble’s (PG, Fortune 500) Tide commercial featuring a “talking stain” was an unexpected success.

“Normally the big packaged goods companies don’t get what the Super Bowl is about,” said Steve McKee, president of McKee Wallwork Cleveland Advertising.

Anheuser-Busch, which purchased the most advertising time this year, scored with the Clydesdale ad. But the brewer did not dominate the post-game advertising polls the way it normally does and several advertising experts said the brewer’s commercials were formulaic and predictable.

When it comes to cross-platform advertising, or Internet tie-ins, Go Daddy was one of the most effective. The Internet domain name company, which has developed a reputation for pushing risqu� ads, produced a spot called “Exposure” that Fox deemed inappropriate. Go Daddy decided to use its 30-second Super Bowl spot to inform viewers that “Exposure” was posted on its Web site.