“Even in a year when Anheuser-Busch consciously avoided airing crude Super Bowl commercials, the beer giant bested the field, again, with one of its most potent advertising weapons: a silly sight gag. A skydiver balks, even when urged to jump in pursuit of a six-pack of Bud Light. But the pilot finds the loss too much to bear and leaps after the brew,” Bruce Horovitz writes for USA Today.

“For a record seventh year in a row, Anheuser-Busch has won USA TODAY’s exclusive Ad Meter consumer ranking of the top Super Bowl ads. In this year’s winner, by DDB Chicago, when a skydiver refuses to jump, his buddy tosses out a six-pack of Bud Light. The guy still doesn’t jump, but the pilot does,” Horovitz writes.

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Pepsi’s disappointing (for the second year in a row) iTunes ads did not place highly in the rankings. Placing in the aptly-named category, “The rest of the ads,” the long :45 (Gwen Stefani-less) ad scored a 6.01 and the :30 commercial with Stefani scored even lower with a 5.31. The Bud Light commercial topped the list with a score of 8.65.

The good news? Napster’s spot where their feline icon at the football game holds up sign dubiously comparing the “price” of the new Napster service with rival iTunes ($10,000 to fill up an iPod nonsense) was rated the lowest of all ads with a 4.37. Can you spell “backfire?” We knew you could. View the Napster ad in QuickTime here. (All of the Super Bowl ads can be viewed here).

Always known for his excellent timing and ability to misread even the simplest things, tech writer Paul Thurrott called the Napster ad “good stuff” on his Internet-Nexus blog this morning here, so now you know that the ad really did suck badly. “Guaranteed by Thurrott,” you know? He should make stickers, like “Plays for Sure” and other idiocy like that; Wintellites do love stickers plastered all over their hardware. Thurrott’s sticker would be perfect for the front of all three Dell Digital Junkboxes that’ll be sold this year.

Anyway, the Napster commercial was basically a still graphic attempting to smear the iPod and iTunes with FUD, which you can see here.

Related MacDailyNews articles:
Second Pepsi iTunes television commerical featuring Gwen Stefani posted online – February 04, 2005
$10,000 to fill an iPod? Napster’s going to end up with egg on their face – February 04, 2005
Pepsi-iTunes Super Bowl commercial posted, Gwen Stefani spot also under consideration – February 02, 2005
Pepsi’s iTunes ad places near bottom of Super Bowl Ad Meter list – February 02, 2004