Super Bowl Ads of 2009: The Year of Lame and Violent Jokes

Super Bowl commercials have become as much a part of the celebrated game as the actual game itself. Super Bowl XLIII was no exception to the rule; although the year 2009 might go down as the year of violent commercials and lame remakes. Almost every commercial, from Cheeto's with the attack of the birds, to Doritos with their crystal ball and the Diet Pepsi commercial with the lightning had violent overtones mixed in with bad comedy.

There were a few commercials which will ultimately be forgotten, probably by June when everybody has had their fill of them. The ads from Teleflora, H&R Block, and Overstock.com all will vanish into the night and never be heard from again.

Budweiser; once again the Clydesdales make some memorable commercials for the Super Bowl, from a horse running off to a circus to find his true love, to a horse that plays fetch with a log. Although I don't think they matched up to previous years when the Clydesdales played football, or the lamb that streaked across the field, Bud had some of the best ads for Super Bowl XLIII.

Doritos once again managed to pull off one of the best Super Bowl commercials this year with the crystal ball. This commercial was made up by two out of work brothers and $2,000. USA Today ranked this commercial as the best of 2009, and both Doritos and the brothers were happy with the outcome. Once again, consumer imagination brings the best results; and Super Bowl XLIII shows that a company that listens will get results.

The Bridgestone commercials were among the best of Super Bowl XLIII as well. The Potato Heads were the best of the two. This commercial ran off an idea used last year with the idea that Bridgestone tires can save lives. The other commercial, where the tires were stolen off of a moon vehicle, was meant to show how highly rated the quality of the tire is.

Pepsi and Coke did their usual yearly Super Bowl commercial battle. Although they both had interesting comedy, and Pepsi went with a more violent angle this year, these two soft drink giants didn't match up to earlier years. The Coke Zero commercial with a spoof of their venerable Mean Joe Green Super Bowl commercial just seemed a bad imposter of the original.

The car commercials were sparse this year with only Hyundai, Toyota and Audi making an appearance at Super Bowl XLIII. The car commercials didn't do near as well as they wanted. And the best of these came from Audi with a reflection on its history of cars and a brief comedy spot with the lavender colored car.

E-Trade did well with the talking babies once again. For Super Bowl XLIII they gave the little guy a talking, or rather singing, buddy. You have to wonder how much they pay in baby food and sitters while the camera guys do their magic.

On the funny, but not intended, side sits Denny's with their Super Bowl commercial which caused their website to crash from so many people going there. The Pedigree adoption ad using unusual animals is said to have had an effect at the SPCA site because it got people looking into adoption. And the Taco Bell Super Bowl commercial turned out to be just plain scary.

The last group here is the movie ads. It seems remakes are in the air this year with the new Star Trek and Transformer movies. Pixar did a good Super Bowl commercial for its preview of UP. Although movie ads rarely do well as Super Bowl commercials and Super Bowl XLIII didn't buck this trend.

Super Bowl commercials that were simply disappointing, since their sponsors usually do better; Go Daddy's lame sex joke, CareerBuilder, Cars.com, and Castrol making use of chimps; maybe I was expecting better for Super Bowl XLIII.