• by Frank Compton , February 5, 2009

What do you do when the Super Bowl title is not enough? When you want more competition, more reasons to watch the game and even more reasons to talk about it the next day ... and the day after ...

Well, if you're an advertising agency in Pittsburgh like Brunner (www.brunnerworks.com), you go head-to-head with an agency in Phoenix (E. B. Lane) to see who's got the chops to survive the game and land on top. As die-hard football fans, Brunner and E.B. Lane took Super Sunday festivities to the next level by hosting a joint post-Super Bowl ad survey.

This was the first Super Bowl in a long, long time, in which the actual game was better than the commercials. To say that the ads during Super Bowl XLIII were not up to par as compared to classics of the past is a bit of an understatement. But given the current economic climate, are we really so surprised to see that many of the ads lacked creativity or consumer appeal? Creative risk-taking comes down a notch every time there is talk of a recession... And, over the course of my life in the ad biz, I've lived through too many recessions to think otherwise.

Clients simply grow super conservative when it comes to traditional media - especially on the national stage of the Super Bowl. Marketers want to play it safe. Knowing their initials will be on the approval slip, they become risk-averse and don't feel comfortable producing ads that go too far over the edge. Actually, they don't even want to see the edge.

Despite this year's uninspiring advertising, the game did produce some quality, creative work that everyone from both cities recognized. The disparity between the good, the bad and the ugly was distinct, with most ads falling into the last two categories, based on voting by both agencies.

Top honors went to CareerBuilder.com's "Tips" and Doritos' "Free Doritos" -- the latter most noteworthy for its user-generated status. Each agency gave Coke brands kudos in the Top 5 when you account for the "Polamalu" affect in Pittsburgh and Arizona going for the Coca-Cola "Heist" spot.

On the other end of the spectrum, in the spots voted the worst, both agencies agreed the two Toyota offerings, "Faces" and "Killer Heat," Sprint's "Roadies" and SoBe Life Water's "Lizard Lake" stank to high heaven, ranking them in the bottom five out of a total of 49 spots that ran.

That said, what impressed me the most was the continued viewership and online "chatter" (on Facebook, Twitter, blogs and elsewhere) that many of the top ads received. As was evident by the Doritos ad, those marketers who were willing to invest in online ideas and social networking components stole the show.

Super Bowl advertisers next year and beyond would be well-served to take this year's activities as a sign of things to come.

Beyond that, what a great game!