No Clear Winner Among Super Bowl Commercials

There were no standouts,commercially speaking, in last night’s Super Bowl. Unless of course, you believe USA Today’s Ad Meter which ranked the Betty white/Abe Vigoda number one. Or if you believe the Mullen/radian6 Brand Bowl which, through social media comment and positive sentiment, gave top honors to Doritos (the brand, not an individual spot). Or if you place credence in Bob Garfield’s watch-them-all-before-the-game approach then the top slot goes to Audi.

Or if you are a fan of Adland’s Ask Wappling, the love went to Volkswagon’s Punch Buggy ad. Or of you can’t get enough of Make the Logo Bigger’s Bill Green then it’s Google’s Parisian ad. Or if Hulu is your gig, then the top slot was Doritos to own for its consumer-generated House Rules ad. Betty White’s Snickers ad and Google’s search ad faired well there too. As did the hottie-in-a-tub Megan Fox ad for Motorola…which distracted us enough to mostly miss the VW Punch Buggy ad which followed. We know. Predictable behavior around here at Adrants.

Or if you can’t get enough Barbara Lippert, Budweiser’s Clydsdales or Bud Light’s Asteroid. Or, well, she really isn’t clear on which one she liked best. (In a later article, she named Google her fave.) Or if you’re a commenter on Bob Garfield’s Ad review, then honors, it would seem, should go to Google. Bob didn’t even comment on the spot because, well, he watches all the ads (at least the ones that have been released), forms his opinion and files his story before the kick off. he misses in-game context and late/un-released commercials.

Or if you can’t go through another day without your YouTube fix, well, you just might have to. The video site hasn’t finalized its Ad Blitz voting yet. Stay tuned.

The social media geeks loved the Vizio commercial which had Beyonce, Tay Zonday, Gary Brolsma, the Twitter bird, Facebook and a bunch of other geeky stuff. Mashable’s Pete Cashmore loved the Google spot but couldn’t help including a picture of Megan Fox.

Oh and that Tim Tebow ad? Off the radar mostly. It was so innocuous, it actually passed us by in-game before we realized we hadn’t seen it.

So anyway. There were two major themes running through this year’s Super Bowl commercials. The first one isn’t new. In fact, it’s old and tired: the emasculation of men. It popped up in a few commercials throughout the game. The second is new and likely an inadvertent reaction to decades of objectifying women. Men in their underwear. Yes. No less than four commercials had men in various states of undress. someone said even. S0meone pointed ou even the robot in the Intel commercial wasn’t wearing pants. OK, OK, that’s a stretch. We know robots don’t wear pants.

And yes, there were still hot chicks. A Super Bowl can’t pass without the appearance of at least a few beautiful babes. Motorola gave us Megan Fox. Bridgestone gave us a hot apocalyptic wife. And Teleflora gave us a mini-skirted bitch…uh…woman who wasn’t so nice to her less than beautiful co-worker.

So this year’s winner for Best Super Bowl commercial? It’s anyone’s guess. We don’t even have a favorite. Perhaps if we could combine Telefolora with Motorola with Bridgestone along with some Google and Betty White topped with a dollop of Doritos and a lit fart, we might have a contender.

While the top choice for Super Bowl commercial may be fuzzy, one thing is clear. People are sick of GoDaddy. Both of the domain Registrar’s ads placed at the bottom of most lists. But, that didn’t stop CEO Bob Parson’s from sending out a press release claiming his ads “drove more Internet traffic than any other advertiser during the game according to Akamai” and “generated more new customers & sales for Go Daddy than any other Super Bowl Sunday campaign in company history.” See? Even losers can be winners in the twisted world of advertisers.

In all, it was an underwhelming year for Super Bowl commercials. Be it post-Nipplegate fear, the economy, over bearing political correctness or just plain lack of creative talent, this year was a fail.