GoDaddy on top?

What was the most effective SuperBowl ad? It depends on how you measure it.

USA Today used focus groups and concluded that it was the $2,000 “snow globe” Doritos ad, which had won its “Crash the SuperBowl” content for user generated content — in this case user-submitted advertisements. Joe and Dave Herbert from Ohio who made the ad collected $1 million for their efforts, and were on the Tonight Show earlier this week. This is also the most popular ad on YouTube.

2nd and 3rd on the USA Today list went to two Clydesdale ads, 4th to Mr. Potato Head — all ads I thought were effective. Another Doritos spot placed 5th, while three of the next four were ads I thought relatively effective: Cars.com overachiever, Pepsi’s “Forever Young,” and the Castrol grease monkeys.

Citing increases in gameday web traffic, compete.com said Denny’s was far and away the winner, with Cheetos, Pepsi, Bud and Gatorade (the big G?) far behind. ComputerWorld tried to estimate the most popular online ads, and their top three were the CareerBuilder ad (which I though crushed the Monster ad), the snow globe and the Conan O’Brian ad that I said was “funnier than his late night show usually is.”

TiVo measured the most watched ads on its time-shifting boxes, and came up with a slightly different list. The Doritos snow globe ad fell to fourth, and none of the other USA Today top 10 made the list. Number one was “Enhanced,” the slightly more effective and less offensive GoDaddy ad that was buried near the end of the game.

However, rewound ads don’t necessarily mean effective ads. Perhaps they are a measure of attention, but (as TechCrunch argued a year ago), they could easily be a measure of an ad that people didn’t understand. Which means they were of below-average effectiveness for non-TiVo customers.

At least TiVo concluded that the ETrade baby was only a one-year wonder. Since he’s outgrown his usefulness, let’s hope his parents will send the brat to preschool to get socialized.