SUPER BOWL XL COMMERCIAL THOUGHTS

As always, some really good ads aired during the big game, and some that made me wonder why the heck the companies would want to put out almost $2.5 million for 30 seconds of crap.

While they seemed to produce their commercials for the Super Bowl more for entertainment value than product placement, my son and I agreed that the AmeriQuest Mortgage spots were generally the funniest. The best job of meshing entertainment value and product went to Coca Cola's new Full Throttle energy drink.

As always, Anheuser Busch's ad agency seems to come away a winner with it's spots. I especially liked the Clydesdale piece for sentimential/feel good value, and the "Magic Fridge" ad was especially good.

Of course, the GoDaddy.com spot will get people talking, and more importantly, visiting it's Web site to view the "uncensoured" ad. But in getting folks to visit the Web site, you also hope that at least some of them will look around and learn more about the company and it's products.

And while it didn't rate among the best, the Fidelity Financial Services ad featuring Sir Paul McCartney was rather good. Featuring pictures from his four decade career and highlighting his career, business, and personal accomplishments, Fidelity did a good job with the very subtle message that "if we're good enough for Sir Paul..."

But the Leonard Nimoy piece didn't do anything for me, and neither did the Diet Pepsi spots. They just didn't connect.

The Lakeland Ledger had a group of people discuss the ads and their effectiveness. Their thoughts are included in today's edition. And you can get an excellent review from Josh Hallett in Winter Haven, a business blog consultant who knows a bit about commercials and PR, at his hyku blog.