The New York Giants have just won Super Bowl XLVI in front of US viewing audience estimated at 111 million.

An ever-growing number of people were watching the telecast as much for the much-hyped super bowl commercials as they did for the game.

A 30 second slot will cost advertisers a chunky $3.5 million but most advertisers will argue that they get good bang for their buck because the hype for the ads means no viewers leave the screen (the game runs for 3 hours so spare a thought for the bladders of the viewing audience).

If you are a big brand and you want to stay big, you have to fork out the cash for one of these slots. A few years ago, Pepsi decided not to run ads in the Super Bowl, that move alone was said to have cost the company market share and countless millions of dollars. Pepsi will be running more than one ad this year.

It used to be that the Super Bowl ads aired for the first time (and in some cases the only time) during the telecast but this year, 20 of the 36 advertisers aired their commercial before the game.

The best Super Bowl ad is voted on and contested as passionately as the winning team. Last year the consensus was that the ‘Darth Vader’ VW commercial was the winner (50 million Youtube views). It was a gem.

The People’s Choice seems to have been the M&M spot

But I reckon my vote goes to Volkswagen again for Dog strikes back