Beer out as top Super Bowl ad

ALBUQUERQUE, Feb. 2 (UPI) -- U.S. tire maker Bridgestone's Potatoheads commercial was voted the favorite product pitch aired during the Super Bowl Sunday in the ninth annual ADBOWL.

The ad, featuring Potatohead toys driving a car equipped with Bridgestone tires, was the first non-beer commercial to grab the top spot in six years, said Steve McKee, president of the media services firm McKee Wallwork Cleveland and founder of ADBOWL.

Bridgestone also took second place with its "Hot Item" ad, which showed astronauts tooling around another planet in a rover sporting the company's tires only to have them stolen.

No. 3 was Coca-Cola's "Heist," which had insects spiriting away a bottle of Coke from a picnic site while the human owner sleeps.

Anheuser-Busch's "Clydesdale Fetch," depicting one of the beer company's trademark horses retrieving a huge stick, was No. 4 and fifth was Doritos' "Crystal Ball," in which throwing a glass ball into a vending machine for free snacks worked well but throwing one at the boss to get a promotion, not so much.

The next five were a Pepsi ad showing men getting knocked silly, a Pedigree spot for pet adoption, a Monster.com ad about bad jobs, another Doritos ad about super crunchy chips and a Budweiser pitch for its light beer.

The rankings were determined by viewers voting at www.ADBOWL.com. Vote totals were not provided.

McKee said he thinks the nearly quarter billion dollars the companies forked out advertising during the big game was money well-spent

"Despite their seemingly expensive price tag, the ads reach their target audiences for just pennies per household," he said. "That's a great buy in any economic climate."