First off, congrats to Pittsburgh.  Even though I was puling for underdog Arizona, I have to admit that this Titans fan got some small satisfaction from watching Kurt Warner lose in the final seconds of the game.

Anyway, like every other ad geek in the country, I took some notes on what turned out to be a lackluster performance from Superbowl ads.  Here’s a few of them…

• Budweiser:  did they just buy up every single second they could find?  Enough with the Clydesdales already!  And…psst…if you have to run a spot that explains what “drinkability” means, then maybe it’s not such a great POD.  Just a thought.
• Teleflora:  ok, so that was funny.
• GoDaddy.com:  Danika in all her glory…and this year she brought friends.  It’s a good strategy to put the unedited versions on the web…that’ll drive the traffic!  I must say, they’ve done a great job of milking the Danika controversy for all it’s worth.  hmm…no pun intended.
• Pepsi:  really?  MacGruber?  And was that Richard Dean-Anderson?  He got old and fat!
• Sobe:  weird.
• NBC:  the LMAO ad was good…clever.
• Hulu:  Alec Baldwin was a nice choice of talent.  He did a great job of making fun of their customer base.
• Career Builder:  good ad, very creative.
• Coke Zero:  this, I enjoyed.  Mixing the Coke brand managers with Troy Polamalu in the Mean Joe Green throwback was a nice touch.

There were two standouts in my mind…not for their huge production values or over-the-top creative…but for their smooth simplicity and cleverness…

• Miller High Life:  yeah, they were there.  If you blinked, you missed them.  Their spot lasted about one second.  It was a guy standing in front of a stack of Miller who yelled “High Life!”  And that was it.  Nice…subliminal…but nice.

• Jay Leno:  cruising in his sportster with the number “10” on the side, “9 central” on the rear quarter panel, and “fall” on the license plate.  Slick and unassuming.  I like it.

Maybe it’s the economy, or maybe it’s just a sign of the times.  Superbowl advertising is becoming analogous for advertising in general…where the real value of the tactic is the ad itself, not in what it could possibly accomplish.  It’s the epitome of “the media is the message” way of thinking.

But hey, if you’ve got the money and don’t mind blowing it…more power to ya.