That's a wrap

Well, another Super Bowl has come and gone and if you watched it just for the ads, you missed a pretty good game.

But as the sun comes up on another water cooler Monday, I'm no more inclined to buy Doritos, Pepsi, Budweiser, Coca Cola or use TaxACT.com than I was yesterday at this time.

It wasn't all bad, but there were very few hits and even fewer surprises thanks to all the pre-releases and the formulaic spots that graced the game.

I'm not going to pick apart and bash my least favorite ads. I get tired of doing the same thing over and over. Criticizing Godaddy ads for being sexist, Doritos ads for being juvenile, and Cadillac for putting the ATS on a race track is like criticizing Donald Trump for being an egomaniac. I can do it all I want, but it's not going to change anything.

So here are a couple of my favorites:

Chevrolet Silverado 2012



Good story. Relevant to the product. Funny bit at the end with the Twinkies. It would have worked with or without the shot at Ford. Best GM Super Bowl spot in years.

Volkswagen Dog Strikes Back



Engaging, funny, and they actually made the Star Wars tie in work, if you were one of the 160,000,000 people who saw "The Force" commercial last year.

But most people in America didn't see the best Super Bowl spot this year, because it aired on the Canadian broadcast. If only Budweiser's work in the U.S. were this culturally relavent.



Okay, I lied. I can't let the others off that easy.

Coca Cola: Nobody got that the bears were actually reacting to what was going on in the game. These spots were recognizable as Coke, but not engaging.

Pepsi: If Flavor Flav is your surprise ending, you need a better spot.

Budweiser: Pepsi did the "our brand through the ages" thing ages ago.

Honda: It saddened several people at our party to learn that Ferris Bueller ended up in a CRV.

Century 21: Donald Trump is your epitome of smart? I think I need a new realtor.

Cars.com: One word... creepy.

Chrysler: The most talked about spot at our party so they did something right, and I'm probably in the minority on this one, but for me there's something disingenuous about an Italian car company hiring Clint Eastwood to give America a pep talk. What killed the spot for me was the reference to our political divide and the phrase "after these trials," as if they are in the past or will soon be if only we get off our collective duff and buy a Chrysler, Jeep or Dodge.



So the lows this year were not as low as previous years. The highs were about where I expected them to be. And the rest? Mildly entertaining, highly derivative, eminently forgettable. In short, another Super Bowl.