After having some time to reflect on the Super Bowl advertising, I’ve come up with the Single Minded Proposition’s first annual list of the top 5 and bottom 5 Super Bowl ads. Here we go…

Top 5

1) Tide: In the spirit of full disclosure, I spent about 5 years working on advertising for the Tide brand. During that time, we did some nice advertising. But, the ad that Tide produced for the Super Bowl was just awesome. It was well produced, well acted, it had a great storyline and it was very, very funny. The tagline “No Stain is Sacred” is perfect. Unlike a lot of Super Bowl advertising, the ad actually tied back to a core product benefit. P&G is known for more conservative advertising that tries not to offend anyone. This ad actually showed a Ravens fan getting the upper hand over a 49ers fan. Interesting that the Ravens ended up winning the game. Well done Tide.

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2) GoDaddy.com: Combine a supermodel and a nerd with rosacea and you get the most talked about ad of the Super Bowl. A lot of people were understandably offended by this ad. But, I found it to be really funny. And unlike previous GoDaddy.com ads, it actually talked about the benefits of the service. The ad has gotten almost 10 million views on YouTube and the nerd from the ad has been on every talk show. Like it or not, GoDaddy.com scored with this ad (and so did the nerdy kid).

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3) Budwiser Clydesdale: Yeah, I’m a big sap. There have been a lot of great Super Bowl ads with the Clydesdales, but this was the best of them all. I have to admit that I got goosebumps when the horse came running down the street. Also a great use of the song “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac. The ad was the one bright spot for Budweiser this year. Ads for Bud Dark and Bud Light fell flat.

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4) Dodge RAM: I have to admit that I didn’t like this ad at first. But I watched it again and then again. There’s something about the simplicity and the power of the spoken word and the photo montage that made it break through the Super Bowl clutter. Still not as good as the original “Imported from Detroit” ad with Eminem from two years ago, but a very powerful ad from Chrysler.

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5) Samsung: I’ll watch anything with Paul Rudd and Seth Rogan. They are just flat-out funny. Add Saul Goodman (Breaking Bad) and you have comic gold. I watched this ad 10 times and laughed harder each time. But, I still think the “Unicorn Apocalypse” ad would have been better for the Super Bowl.

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Bottom 5:

1) Cars.com: Another Super Bowl miss by Cars.com. This one has a car dealer trying to hard-sell customers using wolves. Not really funny and didn’t explain the value of a site like Cars.com. Also, Cars.com seems to change their tagline every year. Last year was “Confidence Comes Standard”, this year “All Drive, No Drama”. Pick one and stick with it.

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2) Pistachios: Well, you basically know your career is over when you do an ad for pistachio nuts. The latest ad for pistachio nuts featured PSY and his song Gangham Style. He joins an elite group of “stars” who have been featured in the Pistachio campaign including Levi Johnson, the Village People, Rob Blagojevich and Snooki. #badcareermoves

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3) Budweiser Black Crown: It’s hard to imagine the same company that created the excellent Clydesdale ad also produced the ultra boring ad for Black Crown. This kind of ad has no place in the Super Bowl. It should be running only in late night cable.

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4) Mercedes: So sad about this one. You had Willem Dafoe and the Rolling Stones song “Sympathy for the Devil”. It should have been great. But, it was just a long build up to tell us that the new Mercedes is affordable. It missed the mark.

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5) Becks Sapphire: Creepy looking fish swims around a bottle of Becks singing “No Diggity”. Where is Nemo when you need him?

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So, that’s my point of view. What’s yours?