MPG: Super Bowl Advertising: How 140 Million People Were Undersold - Don Seaman

OK, how about we call this the Forgetful Bowl? First, it was Christina Aguilera and Lyricgate (hey, at least there was no Wardrobe Malfunction, right?). Then the Steelers forgot that the Packers had more players from their secondary in the medical ward of Frozen Cowboy Stadium than in the defensive backfield… so they continued to run the ball. Solid play calling there. Seriously, the director had to cut to the camera leading to the tunnel to follow the injured more than Cameron Diaz had popcorn to feed A-Rod. (Actually apparently A-Rod was incensed that his popcorn moment was caught on camera and insisted that he never be shown again. I know, because John Madden texted me.)

At Halftime, the Black-Eyed Peas forgot that they're not a cover band, Slash forgot his Axel, and Usher forgot to sing. In fact, it was suggested to me a few days before the game that they just have the kids from Glee sing the halftime show – that it would drum up excitement for their post-game episode. Well, there were lots of cover songs and guest stars, and a lot of big forced dance routines, so maybe they weren't so far off from having Glee at halftime in the first place.

But most of all, advertisers forgot that Super Bowl ads are supposed to be, well, their Super Bowl as well. Like the Steelers, creative departments came up flat and never recovered to make it an interesting game.

A few stats about the Super Bowl ads themselves:

As far as the "game only" spots, there were more ads for web sites than for any other category – 14, by our count. Autos and movies came in tied for a close second with 11 each. Chevy had five spots in the game alone – nearly half of the category.

Of the 118 spots we're considering "in-game" for our quick analysis, we felt that 55 – just under 50% of them - were trying to be clever. In other words, pulling out the stops to hit high scores in the Ad Trackers employed during Analysis Monday. They were "Chasing 1984."

In our estimation, about 55 of them wasted their time. OK, perhaps the mini Darth Vader ad was cute and memorable, but even that felt a bit dated, if you really think about it.

TiVo reports that the most replayed ad was the Snicker's spot that had Roseanne Barr getting creamed by a log. Sorry, Roseanne, you are most definitely NOT this year's Betty White. And the spot that seems to be getting the most chatter is the Eminem commercial – the one where he's actually seen live and driving through his beloved Detroit, not animated and whining about why he never does commercials. And Groupon made headlines about the perceived insensitivity of their PSA-mocking ads, even though they are donating to the very charities that they seemingly mocked.

A few even made this particular reviewer want to actively avoid buying their product because of the messaging. Doritos, for example. It should go without saying that I'd prefer my co-workers respect both my own private fingers and my own private pants. And I'm not sure that I want to try Living Social anytime soon, unless I'm looking for a good deal on EstroMaxx. And speaking of Max, Pepsi Max is something to keep away from your spouses/significant others, guys. Unless you like being emasculated for what you eat and who you say hello to, that is.

And thinking about it, wouldn't the creative that Hyundai used for their Sonata – the spot where people still use cell phones the size of toasters and carry turntables for personal listening devices – been so much better used by something like the Android, vs. Apple tech? Although you must give Motorola kudos for using the 1984 theme to imply that Apple had now become Big Brother itself.

And all of these spots pale in comparison to the biggest corporate presence in the game overall – Fox itself. There were 24 promos for Fox programs during the game. That seems like a lot, especially considering that many were for either House (which did get a respectable bump of 16% for A18-49 over its previous, pre-Super Bowl episode) or Chicago Code, which retained a fair amount of House viewers but didn't do significantly better than the quickly cancelled Lone Star in the same time slot.

Perhaps House was just able to capitalize upon the Mean Joe Greene homage during one memorable promo.

And the promos for Glee didn't seem to help retain much of the post-Super Bowl crowd, as Glee reached over a 100 million fewer overall viewers than the game. According to our analysis, 139.7 million people watched at least 6 minutes of the Super Bowl on Sunday. Glee's reach? 30.7 million. And both of those are taking into consideration Live+Same Day viewing (mostly, the "pausers" and "fast-forwarders".)

One last point about the Super Bowl ads – which had the most viewers overall? That was the pod that aired between 7PM and 7:05PM. The top spot belonged to the minute that aired the Doritos "Reanimation" spot – where Doritos bring back a man's grandfather from beyond the cremation urn – and the Pepsi Max spot that featured a man getting hit in the crotch with a Pepsi Max can. About 101.2 million viewers saw those ads. Hey, at least it was the classy creative of the brands that got the most viewers, right?

But for most of us, the biggest question of this year's Advertising Bowl has to be this – does Volkswagen release a sequel, in which Darth's mother confesses: "Darth – it was your father!"

"Noooooooooooo!"