Most Popular Super Bowl Ads Go to the Dogs
The commercials from Super Bowl XLVI were packed with memorable advertising moments, including a nude M&M's character and a "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" parody by Honda. But some of the most beloved ads from this year's football spectacle featured mankind's four-legged friends.
USA Today teamed up with Facebook to create the Super Bowl Ad Meter, which allows the social networking site's users to rate each ad on a scale of one to five, from "Fumble" to "Loved It," respectively. Voting on the Ad Meter opened up at kickoff and will conclude on Tuesday at 6 p.m. ET.
As of the writing of this article, the ratings have gone to the dogs. The commercial currently in the number one spot is the Doritos "Man's Best Friend" commercial, which features a cat-murdering Great Dane who buys his owner's silence with a bag of chips. Currently in third is Bud Light's commercial featuring another dog, Weego, who fetches bottles, cases and even kegs of the beer every time he is called.
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In fifth place is the ad featuring Mr. Quiggly, the French Bulldog who out-raced a group of Greyhounds, then moonwalked over the finish line, while wearing Skechers shoes. In sixth is a commercial which showed the training efforts of an overweight canine that got back into shape so that he could chase a Volkswagen car.
But while dog commercials may be among the most popular, there were trends among other popular ads as well.
When it comes down to the cute-factor, commercials with babies also seemed to do well. Another successful Doritos commercial, which is currently second on USA Today's list, showed a baby swiping a bag of chips from a taunting toddler after being launched in a slingshot-like swing by his grandmother.
The E*Trade baby also returned this year, this time giving his father some investment advice just outside of a hospital's nursery, while his friend was "speed dating" with the newborns inside.
As is customary for Super Bowl ads, many of them relied on sex appeal to sell their products.
GoDaddy.com, which is known for it's racy ads, promoted its website by showing spokeswomen Danica Patrick and Jillian Michaels applying body paint to the skin of a nude, female model.
An ad for the Toyota Camry featured the "reinvented couch," which was made up entirely of women in string bikinis (or men in boxers, depending on preference). One sexually-suggestive Teleflora ad hinted that if men give flowers for Valentines Day, then they "shall receive."
But the sexy ads weren't just focused on the ladies. Los Angeles Galaxy soccer star David Beckham left little to the imagination in an underwear ad that showed almost the entirety of his athletic and highly tattooed body.
One of the evening's more serious commercials was created by Chrysler, who appealed to the American spirit in the midst of a struggling economy through an inspirational speech delivered by actor Clint Eastwood.
"This country can't be knocked out with one punch. We get right back up again, and when we do, the world's going to hear the roar of our engines," said Eastwood in the commercial. "Yeah, it's halftime America, and our second half is about to begin."
Remarkably, the top two most popular Super Bowl ads thus far are both from Doritos, a company that depended on fan submission videos from its "Crash The Super Bowl" contest to fill up its ad time during the big game. The company has also promised $1 million to the creators of their commercials should their ad take first place overall on USA Today's Ad Meter once voting is complete on Tuesday.
