Super(?) Bowl

Following the scintillating touchdown kickoff return by the sensational Devin Hester, the Coronation of King Peyton (yawn) was surrounded by even more yawn-inducing advertising at this year's Super Bowl. In what is suposed to be Madison Avenue's day to score big points, we were left with questionable calls and fumbles. Don't take my word for it, see the lackluster reviews like this one.

IMO, FedEx submitted the most creative ad for the 2nd year in a row, following up the dinosaur delivery episode with an out-of-this-world sci-fi spot.

But the show was most definitely stolen by a mini-mercial by CBS featuring a David Letterman snuggling on the couch with his arch nemesis, "The Oprah."

Best effort in a losing cause ad goes to K-Fed, for painting himself the pop-sensation-cum-fry-guy.

Interesting metrics posted here. Did you know Neilsen is counting DVR playbacks now? According to Neilsen, the ROI winners were Career Builder for biggest web traffic spike, while Anheuser-Busch won "20 percent of all post-game online discussion."

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the ads this year were the proliferation of "aggregator sites" like YouTube and iFilm that pulled the video onto the web for later viewing. This of course means that viewers don't have to go the company's own web sites to see one ad; they can go to one site to see them all. These aggregator sites present a missed opportunity for marketers, Ad Age opines.

PS Our local Portsmouth product, "It's Hard to Say Goodbye," came late in the game, as is appropriate, and it hit the mark nicely, although it did seem to be rushed a bit in its final edited form, didn't it? Ooop, I see that it was in fact a bit different, according to this story in the P-Herald.