On Sunday, February 6th 2005, 86.1 million people tuned into FOX for The Super Bowl of Football, Halftime Music and Advertising.

Three entertainment venues took place: A football game, America's biggest sporting event of the year, also known as the NFL Championship Game.

The Super Bowl Halftime Show starring Paul McCartney was a second reason to turn to FOX on Sunday.

The third reason people tuned in was to watch capitalism at its best... or attempted best.

This year's Super Bowl of Advertising showed 59 television commercials hoping to prove worthy of their individual $2.4 million price tags. And that didn't include what it cost to make each ad.

We were hopeful that more commercials would be a cut above last year's malaise of "malfunctions". For our Inspiration Network would we be able to tout any that fit the healthy, adventuresome, soulful genre?

For the consumer willing to making those advertising hefty costs "pay-off" would there by any inspirational enough to make you want to buy their product or service?

Brad Pitt lent his "adventuresome" profile attempting to inspire us to follow him and the paparazzi to drink more Heineken. While a tribute to America's service people earned high marks in the Rugged Elegant Living "soulful" category.

Of the fifty-nine commercials shown, thirty advertisers paid FOX the $2.4 million price tag for a thirty second spot.

The ads were run before, during and shortly after the football game which, by the way, took place between The New England Patriots and The Philadelphia Eagles.

This year's 2005 Super Bowl Advertisers on FOX included:

AmeriQuest Mortgage Company
Anheuser-Busch: Budweider, Bud Light, Budweiser Select, Branding
Bubblicious
Buena Vista Pictures' The Pacifier
Cadillac
CareerBuilder.com
Cialis
Cosentino
Degree
Emerald Nuts' "They're Kind of Hard to Share"
FedEx Kinko's
Ford: Mustang, Truck
Frito-Lay
GoDaddy.com
Heineken
Honda: Ridgeline Truck
Mastercard
MBNA
McDonalds
MGM Studios' Be Cool
Michelob
Microsoft Search
Napster
NFL Network
Novartis Ciba Vision
O2optix
Olympus
Paramount Pictures
Pepsi / iTunes
Pizza Hut
Quizno's
Silestone Quartz Surfacing: Dennis Rodman
Sony Pictures' Hitch
Staples
Subway
Tabasco
Toyota: Hybrid
20th Century Fox' Robots
Universal Pictures
Univever
Verizon Wireless
Visa
Volvo XC90 V8 / Virgin Galactic Space Travel
Warner Brothers: War of the Worlds, Sahara, The Longest Yard, Constantine, Batman Begins

While more than a handful made our "Best of 2005" list, only a few get the Rugged Elegance "Inspiration" nod.

Who was behind creating these gems?

The Healthy

Not one single commercial aired on Super Bowl Sunday can be categorized by "Rugged Elegance" as healthy.

Thank God there was a healthy, competitive game going on in between all the ads.

Emerald Nuts of California had potential with their product.

But their message did not convey anything about "health" -- even though a report came out at the end of last year that almonds are one of seven foods recommended in a diet that will help you live longer.

The Adventuresome

Volvo and Heineken win in this category.

Volvo and Virgin's Richard Branson offer their audience a trip to Space.

The seven-seater "SUV" is compared to the rocket ship Branson was flying in the ad.

Euro RSCG Worldwide in New York deserves the credit, as well as Volvo and Virgin, for creating their Super Bowl ad called "Rocket."

For details about this global advertising and marketing agency network, go to:

In the one-and-only Heineken commercial on Sunday Brad Pitt stars along with his apartment security guard, a cashier at Ron's Market, Bob the clumsy photographer, thousands of crazed media people and Styx.

We're not sure if the paparazzi watching Pitt from his high-rise apartment is after the University of Missouri Advertising Major "alum" or the six pack of Heineken he buys at the package store.

Pitt makes an adventure out of his quest, which has the paparazzi and the audience fooled.

The Styx song Renegade added the perfect beat before Pitt's three lines speaking on his phone with a mystery person.

Pitt says:

Hey, what you doin?

Ya, were still on.

Hey, can you come pick me up?

Mr. Pitt, you all have us curious. Since this commercial will never be seen again in the U.S., American wants to know. Was it your beautiful wife, Jennifer Aniston ringing you up?

By the way, you have good taste in beer.

Kudos go to Wieden + Kennedy ad agency in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where Heineken is based, as well as David Fincher, who directed the spot.

Fincher also directed Pitt in Seven and Fight Club.

Speaking of beer, the Budweiser ad that had two skydivers left alone in a plane when the pilot unexpectedly jumped out after a Bud-Light six pack gets high adventure marks, as well.

Funny but tragic, if their audience takes it literally.

The first parachutist goes for it.

The second freaks out and won't do it.

No one saw it coming that the pilot would go after the six pack of Bud Light thrown out of the plane as enticement to get the second guy to jump.

Too bad the pilot wasn't wearing a parachute.

While Anheuser-Busch paid for the commercial, DDB in Chicago, a unit of DDB Worldwide Communications Group, deserves the kudos for having created this creative "Skydiver" ad.

Congratulations go to Creative Directors John Hayes, Patrick Knoll, Steve Bougdanos, Art Director Steve Bougdanos, Group Creative Director Barry Burdiak, Chief Creative Officer Bob Scarpelli, Copywriter Patrick Knoll, Director Joe Pytka, Executive Producer Greg Popp, Editor Dick Gordon and DDB's editing company, Spot Welders.

Burdiak and Hayes are also known as the creative geniuses behind the popular "Whassup!" and "True" campaigns for Budweiser.

Hayes, who joined DDB Chicago in 1995 on the beer account said:

We want our advertising discussed by the water cooler.

We strive to achieve that through comedy and staying consistent.

According to Stephen Denning, author of Squirrel Inc. : A Fable of Leadership through Storytelling, the most important number to Hayes and Burdiak in Monday's papers is the USA Today Ad Meter ranking assigned to the best Super Bowl commercials.

DDB Worldwide was recognized last month as the 2004 Global Agency of the year. This prestigious honor was awarded by Adweek Magazine two years in a row.

The Soulful

The minute long Anheuser-Busch Tribute to Our American Soldiers wins hands-down in this category.

It was a reminder of the 2002 Anheuser-Bush spot in which Clydesdales kneel to New York City following the 911 tragedies. Do you remember that?

This year, American civilians in an airport see a group of military service men and women coming home. The civilians' standing ovation had us all applauding with them.

Thanks to TiVo, I've watched this ad again four times to show it to friends who missed it on Sunday. And every time, without fail, I get teary-eyed.

The DDB ad agency in Chicago also gets credit for creating this soulful commercial / "service announcement" called "Applause".

Creative Director, John Hayes, Patrick Knoll, Steve Bougdanos

Art Director, Steve Bougdanos

Group Creative Director, Barry Burdiak

Chief Creative Officer, Bob Scarpelli

Copywriter, Patrick Knoll

Director, Joe Pytka

Executive Producer, Greg Popp

Editor, Dick Gordon

Editing Company, Spot Welders

One thing we remain curious about: Were those actors playing the part of our military people, or were they real service men and women?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Super Bowl Sunday's commercials are such a big deal in America that an entire web site has been created to allow you to review the advertisers and their pitch once again at:

Thinking Outside 'The Box' Using The TiVo Box

Meanwhile, TiVo recorded the most replayed moment of Superbowl XXXIX on Sunday. The company is now able to feed back to advertisers whether their ad got additional exposure -- thanks to the TiVo rewind button.

As it turns out, it was not a play in the game, or Paul McCartney's half time show.

It was the Janet Jacksonesque wardrobe-malfunction parody, starring Ms. Nikki Cappelli, during the GoDaddy.com commercial.

Where advertisers are concerned about TiVo users fast-forwarding through their commercials, they are learning that if they can find ad agencies creative enough to make ads interesting to viewers, advertisers may actually get more play time, not less, as a result of PVR's like TiVo.

The challenge for the ad agency is to create spots that will increase exposure -- like the BMW movies starring Clive Owen or the U2 Video "commercial" -- available to TiVo subscribers.

Not that I'm suggesting the GoDaddy.com ad was in any way healthy, adventuresome or soulful, but it definitely 1/2 of the population's attention.

In previous years, USA Today's audience voted the following ads as winners:

2003: Anheuser-Busch Bud Light

Anheuser-Busch scored big in 2003.

In the winning ad for the brewer's Bud Light, a real zebra is substituted for a football referee "zebra.

"The honest-to-goodness zebra played the role of the official man-in-stripes during a football game played by Anheuser-Busch's famous Clydesdale horses.

The sight gag: The zebra calmly reviews a play on an instant replay monitor.

2002: Anheuser-Busch Bud Light

A wife lures her husband to their bedroom with the promise of a nice cold Bud Light.

Romance, and the husband, go out the window, however, when he dives for the beer and slides on by on their satin sheets.

2001: Anheuser-Busch Bud Light

Cedric The Entertainer's dream date goes awry when his bottles of Bud Light explode.

2000: Anheuser-Busch Budweiser

Movie dog Rex motivates himself with an imagined chase of a Budweiser beer truck, which ends in a blind leap of a hedge, face-first into a parked van.

1999: Anheuser-Busch (company)

Two Dalmatians separated at birth are reunited.

1998: Pepsi

A man sky-surfs and goes one-on-one with a goose. After sharing stunts, they share a can of Pepsi.

1997: Pepsi

Grizzly bears dance to the Village People's YMCA.

1996: Pepsi

A fictional Coca-Cola driver is caught on a security camera trying to grab a Pepsi. The cooler shelves tumble down and dump the Pepsi cans into the aisle.

1995: Pepsi

A boy on the beach trying to get the last drop of his Pepsi sucks himself right into the bottle. "Mom, he did it again!" his sister yells.

1994: Pepsi

A chimp, also a party animal, breaks out of the laboratory and heads for the beach.

1993: McDonald's

NBA legends Larry Bird and Michael Jordan match fantastic shots from unlikely places.

1992: Nike

Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan join to battle basketball bullies.

1991: Diet Pepsi

People from around the world, from African tribesmen to British butlers, sing Ray Charles' Diet Pepsi jingle, "You've got the right one, baby."

1990: Nike

Sports announcers call an imaginary game with star athletes from different sports (including Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson).

1989: American Express

Dana Carvey and Jon Lovitz go to the Super Bowl -- one takes Visa and the other, American Express.

This year's USA Today winners were electronically charted via their Ad Meter, a continuous real-time focus group.

During our "day of rest", a "holy day" for some, America tuned in to be entertained by three groups on Sunday: the athletes, the half-time performers and the people trying to sell us something.

Congratulations to the creative advertising agencies who made Super Bowl Sunday one of three reasons to turn on the tv.

The game gets our highest marks. The Paul McCartney half-time show came in second. And at least a hand full of the 59 commercials shown kept us from hitting the TiVo button. Whether we actually become Heineken, Budweiser or Volvo customers is another question.

Inspire & Be Inspired.

Here's to healthy, adventuresome, soulful, "good beer and cars" living!

~ Jennifer Carolyn King

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