• by Sarah Mahoney , February 2, 2009

No matter that Sunday's Super Bowl XLIII turned out to be one of the best ever, in terms of football. Some of the biggest advertisers--including Budweiser and Toyota--looked like also-rans, and consumers seemed underwhelmed by much of the advertising.

That's not to say there weren't big winners: Bridgestone Taters, a funny (if misogynistic) take on nagging wives, was the breakout favorite of the 5,000 consumers or so around the country who voted in this year's AdBowl, a contest organized by McKee Wallwork Cleveland, an ad agency based in Albuquerque, N.M. And during the game, online chatter and social media focused on Pepsi, reports Collective Intellect, a Boulder, Colo.-based Internet research company.

But the losers were more conspicuous. "Anheuser-Busch usually wins in a walk," says Steve McKee, president of McKee Wallwork Cleveland, pointing out that this is the first time in six years that a beer ad hasn't been the most beloved. And while a Bud spot did come in at No. 4, overall, "the Clydesdales didn't live up to their expectations. When you buy four and a half minutes on the Super Bowl, you get many more chances than other advertisers, and so it should have been in the top 3."

Rounding out the top 5 in AdBowl were Bridgestone's "Hot Item," at No. 2, followed by Coca-Cola's "Heist," Anheuser-Busch's "Clydesdale Fetch," and Doritos' "Crystal Ball."

But various polls came up with radically different results, suggesting that few spots resonated with all groups. USA Today's Ad Meter, for example, based on about 250 responses, ranked Doritos' groin-shattering "Crystal Ball" spot No. 1, and the amateur-created spot also scored well in the Wall Street Journal ranking, along with Monster.com's take on workplace misery and the tail end of a trophy moose. Yet the Doritos ad ranked a distant fifth in the Adbowl.

McKee was also struck by how poor the quality of the automotive advertising was, given the magnitude of the car crisis. "Remember just after 9/11, when Anheuser-Busch did that great ad with the Clydesdales bowing to the Statue of Liberty in the Super Bowl? It was an ad that hit the right note at the right time, when the country was reeling. The country is reeling this year for economic reasons, and it was a moment when a brave advertiser could have stepped up, but they didn't. Instead, it was like, 'There were car ads?'"

In fact, Collective Intellect found that Audi was in the top 3 for negative comments online (along with Pepsi and Coke.) Still, there's an argument that any conversation about a marketer's ad is good news, and when you toss in comments about Doritos and Sobe, PepsiCo brand had a nearly 40% share of voice online during the broadcast.)

Of course, companies are likely to declare themselves winners, too. Miller High Life is already crowing about the success of its 1-second ad. And GoDaddy.com says that its own survey found that two out of three women "loved" its "Shower" commercial with Danica Patrick, and that the site set a record for new customers and total orders on a Super Bowl Sunday. "We've had consistent market share growth with our Super Bowl ads over the years," the company says in its release, "but what's different this time is how quickly we converted the new customers. Before the game ended, we began seeing sales surge."