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The rock band Kiss appears in a TV advertisement for Dr. Pepper Snapple that was broadcast during Sunday’s Super Bowl.

Experts on the spots: Car, Google ads best

When two football heavyweights took the field in Miami, two local advertising heavyweights took their seats in Fort Wayne.

At The Journal Gazette's request, Nancy Wright, CEO of Ferguson Advertising, and Matt Georgi, vice president and creative director of Asher Agency, tuned in and evaluated this year's crop of Super Bowl commercials.

Through halftime, the hands-down winner was "Man's Last Stand," an ad for the Dodge Charger. In it, a man looks into the camera and lists all the things he's willing to do for his wife, including walking the dog, throwing his dirty underwear into the laundry basket and watching vampire TV shows with his wife.

He'll do all those things, he says, as long as he's allowed to drive a Charger.

Wright dubbed it her favorite, calling it "the most entertaining and the most effective" commercial.

"You just had to listen to it. You didn't know until the last minute what the product was," she said. "I thought it was intriguing."

Georgi also liked the Charger ad.

"That's dead-on," Georgi said of what the Dodge ad showing what a man is willing to do for his car. "We've all had those thoughts."

But Georgi didn't see a lot of commercials to love before the game's third quarter.

Some of the big misses for these local advertising executives were the Doritos ads. Georgi didn't like any of them.

"Not impressed so far," he said.

Advertising fans can visit www.CBSsports.com to view every commercial that aired during the Super Bowl. The Web site made ads available as soon as the game was over.

Doritos asked people to vote online to choose which three of its six finalist ads would air during the game. Story lines in the commercials were independent of one another.

Wright enjoyed one in which a man brought flowers to a date with an attractive woman. After she left the room to put them in water, her young son set the suitor straight.

"You don't touch my mama, and you don't touch my Doritos," he said in a serious tone.

Wright thought the spot was "fun and effective."

But a Snickers commercial that had Betty White and Abe Vigoda playing in a neighborhood touch football game "was really lame," she said. The real actors were suited up in a game with guys 50 years younger than they are to illustrate that certain guys weren't effective players until after they'd eaten a Snickers bar.

"Obviously, they spent a ton of money, and I didn't get it," she said.

Both local experts cited a Hyundai ad that showed an imagined 2020 Super Bowl MVP award presentation to Brett Favre, the veteran quarterback who has twice announced his retirement from professional football but then returned to the game and led the Minnesota Vikings into this year's playoffs.

The commercial was for the carmaker's 100,000-mile warranty. Nobody knows what will happen in the next 10 years, the ad says. Wright called it appropriate to run during the Super Bowl. Georgi is a big Favre fan.

Wright didn't see any ads she expects to remember in 20 years. She cited Coke's Mean Joe Green ad and the Apple 1984 commercial as examples of lasting advertising greatness.

"There wasn't one that will live in history forever," she said of this year's group.

Georgi agreed – although he did get excited by a third-quarter ad for Google. He was excited enough to call a reporter back and pronounce it "awesome."

A series of Google searches told the whole story of a man going to France on vacation, searching for things to do there, what to say to woo a French woman and, eventually, information about French wedding ceremonies. No voiceover was necessary. Music was all that accompanied the search questions.

"It told the whole story," Georgi said.

The Super Bowl has long been considered a showcase for advertisers. Even the Census Bureau spent $2.5 million for time during this year's game, according to an Associated Press report. Before game time, experts estimated 100 million viewers would be watching.

CBS, which broadcast the NFL championship, selected the 10 best Super Bowl ads of the past decade. Four of the top 10 were for Budweiser or Bud Light. More than three-fourths of people who planned to watch the Super Bowl this year said they view the commercials as entertainment, according to a survey by the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association.

The poll of 9,578 consumers was conducted Jan.5 to 13 by BIGresearch with a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percent. About one-fourth of those surveyed said the commercials are the primary reason they plan to watch the game.

But 19 percent said advertising should steer clear of the inflated cost to buy time during the Super Bowl and pass those savings on to customers.

sslater@jg.net