Today and tomorrow, the world turns not only to the Super Bowl, but more conversationally to this year’s crop of Super Bowl ads. The premise of this blog is to share good and bad examples of marketing in action which I denote as Brilliant! or Daft! Of course, my denotation of these marketing examples are based solely on my opinion and experience as a marketing consultant. I believe all marketing should be measured solely on sales and nothing else. If it’s boring, but the phone is ringing – stick with it. If it is cool, new and exciting, but the phone is not ringing then what is the point. Businesses are after all in existence to make money.

That being said, the Super Bowl ads often highlight many Daft! advertising efforts. The most popular and most remembered Super Bowl ad of all time – the Mean Joe Green Coke ad – was pulled after just a few months because it did not result in an increase in sales.

A recent Ad Age article about holiday ads shows that while consumers like them, that doesn’t mean they’re influenced by them. A new survey has found that half of consumers say they’re not inspired to shop at the retailer whose holiday TV commercial or online promotion they liked best.

So enjoy the game and the commercials, but don’t model your small business campaigns on anything you see today.