The Packers may have won the game on the field, but the game on the screen - the battle for the hearts and minds of the TV ad viewers ended in a tie. The consumer created Doritos ad featuring a guy who pays big for teasing a hungry pug with Dorito chips finished in a tie atop the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter.
Tied with the Doritos ad was an Anheuser-Busch commercial for Bud Light featuring a dog sitter who puts the dogs to work at his party.
This was the second time in three years that a consumer created Doritos ad has topped the list which has to be worrisome to the big ad agencies., with their million dollar budgets and huge salaries. Doritos also finished second last year. The complete Ad Meter list of results can be found here. You can see all of the ads you may have missed here.
The pug ad was created by a Burbank freelance website designer for all of $500, using a friend's dog and another friend who is a dog trainer. He won $25,000 for making the finalist cut and having the ad run during the game and won an additional $1 million dollars for having the highest rated commercial.
Volkswagen came in third with an ad featuring a kid, dressed as Darth Vader, surprising himself by "starting" a car using the Force. In reality, it was started by his father with a keychain remote from the kitchen window. The ad was the highest finish ever for a car commercial, tying a third place finish by Nissan in 1997.
For a contrarian view to that of the "people meter", check out this column from Ad Age, which gave the Doritos ad only two stars (out of four) and the Bud Light ad one and half. Be sure to check the comments; they're very entertaining.
