Super Bowl Buzz Results

Now that the New York Giants have managed to buck the odds and beat the New England Patriots in Sunday’s Super Bowl, it’s also time to see who won the other important battle of the event… the most popular commercial.

As the game actually got under way, over 200 participants on the Hey! Nielsen Live Polling service were asked if each commercial was a “touchdown,” a “punt,” a “first down” or a “fumble.” The site also collected comments from participants about the ads. And when the dust settled, it was Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser: Horse/Dalmatian commercial that won the night, with 73 percent scoring the ad as a touchdown, 21 percent calling it a first down and 6 percent calling it a punt. The big loser of the night was SalesGenie.com: Sales Lead commercial, which 42 percent of the Hey! Nielsen participants called a fumble.

According to Pete Blackshaw, EVP of Nielsen Online Strategic Services and ClickZ columnist, Pepsi generated the most buzz leading up to the game by previewing some of its “Bob’s House” ad and Anheuser-Busch also got noticed for providing teasers of its ads online. Even so, he was surprised by the lack of online integration with many of the Super Bowl ads, and with many advertisers’ unwillingness to preview them online before the game.

“Our guess is that brands were running so hard to get Super Bowl ads ready to go they didn’t get everything else coordinated,” he said during a conference call to share Hey! Nielsen’s results.