Most Talked About 2011 Superbowl Commercials

Internet company, Alterian, tracked the social media conversations for the Super Bowl commercials.  VW got the most buzz and it was positive by more than a 7:1 ratio.  Here's the VW spot...



It's hard to top cute kids. But does it make you want to run out a test drive a VW? Uh, no. For that reason it fails.

Doritos and Pepsi had some clever and some disgusting user generated spots that generated the most buzz for their brands after VW (and Pepsi Max needs it can get). Worth noting is the following, rather disgusting Doritos spot, because the door-to-door salesperson who created it only spent $82 according to Forbes Magazine. That's a budget most contractors can afford.



Disgusting or not, it does communicate the message that Doritos taste good. Plus, it does a good job of reversing the negative of Doritos' mess.

Groupon followed, but their fake "save the Tibetan people" ad generated twice as much negative buzz as positive. Personally, I didn't have any problems with it. I think it accomplished it's objective.



Other than the Tibetan thing, the ad highlights that Groupon is a way to buy stuff for less. Mission accomplished.

Next up was the Motorola Xoom spot, which made fun of Apple. Somehow the buzz was 2:1 positive, despite legions of Apple drones tweeting that they found nothing humorous about it...



By inference, the spot refers to the legendary Apple 1984 spot...



Part of the point is that Apple is now Big Brother. The bigger point is that there's an alternative to the iPad, with different and better capabilities. Mission accomplished.

While this year's collection of Superbowl commercials weren't as entertaining as past years, I thought they were more effective as advertisements. Most of them were not the work of agency creatives self-actualizing at client expense. They had a message and conveyed it. Give me an ad that sells over one that entertains without selling any day!