Stream of consciousness on the Super Bowl

No, I did not live blog the Super Bowl, but I posted my favorite spot above. Too much else to do this weekend, so it was time to drink some beer, eat some pulled pork and relax once the game came on. Only problem with that scenario was that my husband is a Pats fan. Ouch. Not as bad as my 2007 Mets imploding right before the playoffs, but this is up there. I guess not blogging the Super Bowl, for the first time since 2004, was somewhat instructive. I haven't entered a Super Bowl contest with this little knowledge of the ads in a long time. I was much more like a consumer than an ad wonk. Here are a few stream-of-consciousness thoughts I came away with: when the ads are not your focus, they don't seem all that great—plus consumers hold Super Bowl ads to a higher standard, so when they don't deliver, it's bad news. Repulsion seemed a big theme, with the slobbering dog for Gatorade (which, frankly, no one watching the game at my house understood and Adrants called "the most baffling" Super Bowl spot ever), the barfing baby for E*Trade (which came away as a favorite spot amongst our crowd), and the guy who'd attached jumper cables to his nipples (don't remember the advertiser, but no one around me liked that one). Our gang was also entirely confused by the Sobe Life Water spot featuring Naomi Campbell with a bunch of Geico geckos who were channeling Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Just that description explains why. We far preferred the Shaquille O'Neal jockey spot for Glaceau's VitaminWater. A Botox injection wouldn't hurt Tom Petty. I was wrong about the Taco Bell ad. It ranked in the bottom half of theUSA Today AdMeter, but not the bottom third. However, the Hyundai Genesis ad which referenced the USA Today AdMeter, came in 13th-to-last. Wasn't that Doritos' spot with the giant rat a cast-off from last year's CGM contest? What was with that Sunsilk spot? Are we really to believe that Madonna uses that stuff? You'll notice I haven't mentioned Anheuser-Busch. No real news there. Its spots were the crowd favorites again. OK gotta busy day in front of me. Hope to get the Adverganza Monday morning picks in by Monday afternoon ...