Anyone even remotely interested in the marketing industry looks forward to the year’s pinnacle of advertising achievement. A large percentage of people (not necessarily people in marketing) that tuned in to this year admitted the only reason for doing so was in anticipation of being entertained, not by the players exerting themselves in the ultimate battle for American Football supremacy, rather by the 15 to 30 to 60 second sales pitches disguised as “clever” advertising.

2009 provided diminutive reactions amongst party-goers, with most elicited reactions coming from the ads that had a strong base in foundational humor. According to ADBOWL 2009, the Bridgestone “Potato Heads” ad won this year, undoubtedly because of the instant connection it made with everyone that has ever been in a long-term relationship. But did the ad really make you want to buy tires? Do you think you’ll remember the name “Bridgestone” when you are making a $500 purchase on those new treads? If so, then great, applaud Bridgestone on its effectiveness with you.

However, in this recessive economy companies cannot afford to spend $100,000 per second of air time (and don’t forget about the added cost of production expenses and royalties) and not be certain that investment is going to generate a profitable return. Though “branding campaigns” have proven themselves effective in the past, it should be noted that they were rooted in long-term spending to continually capture the desired market. The success of past branding campaigns have proven that a company cannot effectively create top-of-mind awareness by simply running a cool commercial that makes people laugh during one Super Bowl.

Bridgestone should have overcome this shortfall by providing their audience with a means to continue the already enjoyable experience provided by an amusing commercial. They should have built a website that commanded an ongoing audience, educating its customer while it provided an interactive experience that guaranteed Bridgestone’s brand top-of-mind awareness when that customer went to their neighborhood tire store to invest in their safety while driving.

This interactive experience, though, brings up another point. Vizio’s ad was nothing special, they undoubtedly didn’t spend millions of dollars on production, and they stayed true to the always successful marketing tactic of giving something away for free. They even provided for the interactive experience by encouraging the viewing audience to visit their website: vizio.com. Everything seemed to be going in the direction of a well-played, intelligent marketing approach that could have directly trackable responses; until you visited the site only to find that you couldn’t get to it because they (more specifically, their IT personnel) failed to appropriately load-test their web infrastructure. Let this be a lesson to the inexperienced: before you spend millions of dollars on a TV ad that is going to be broadcast to millions (or even thousands for that matter) of viewers, test, test, test your systems to ensure they can handle the load.

Another crowd-pleaser was Career Builder’s “repetition” ad as it reminded millions of workers of the many annoyances of doing the same thing day-in and day-out over and over and over and over. From a marketing standpoint, this is quite the home run. Everyone that is asked that watched the full Super Bowl remembers this specific ad, and the vast majority of them remember who the ad was for (among those that didn’t, most were able to make a guess that it was one of the big employment sites). Though they all found it incredibly annoying, they were able to relate to its meaning and therefore connected with the message that Career Builder was conveying. Extra marks for actually including a call-to-action by stating the obvious point that if you have a job you hate, then it’s time to look on CareerBuilder.com for a new one.

Other obvious notables are the first Bud Light commercial (meeting attendee makes bad suggestion and is hurtled out of the 5th story office), the Hulu commercial (glorifying the “brain-mushing” effects of watching too much TV), the Coke “heist,” the Coke Zero “re-make,” and Monster’s Moose’s rear (which generated this response from a Twitter follower: “better to have a moose’s a** in your face than be unemployed”).

With our economy in the shape it is in, consumers and businesses alike will all be thinking more and more with their wallet than with their impulses. Marketer’s need to realize this early and adjust their efforts accordingly, increasing their focus on marketing that generates the one thing that will help everyone in this economy: sales. Marketing without sales is synonymous with taking a flame to a pile of cash (think of the Joker in The Dark Knight), it’s just wasteful.