Are you ready for some advertising?

This weekend marks the 28th Ad-gasm. Also known as the Super Bowl.

"But," I can hear you saying, "this is Super Bowl XLVI?"

While the football portion of the big game has been around since 1967, the Super Ad Bowl didn't officially start until 1984, when Apple ran its paean to George Orwell.



So this weekend you'll see corporate and ad agency egos on display on the largest ad stage all competing for your attention.

And that's the problem with most Super Bowl spots. They're more focused on getting attention than building the brand or driving sales.

In advertising's form of "teaching to the test" most commercials are created to satisfy the one-dimensional criterion of the USA Today Admeter, where animals, men getting hit in the groin, and scantily clad buxom babes are celebrated.

Even last year's third place finisher, VW's cute "Darth Vader" spot, had very little to do with the Volkswagen brand. It was a generic spot in which you could have substituted any car and received the same result.



Contrast that with Chrysler's fantastically effective "Imported From Detroit" which finished forty-third...



...behind these – ahem – stellar efforts from Groupon, Doritos, and Kia.







So I'll be watching again this year, hoping for both a good game and better spots. I think the Patriots and Giants will deliver.

We'll see about the Ad Industry.