NEW YORK -- The pressure was on. The tension was thick. And then -- yawns.
The Super Bowl may have been a nail biter, but the ads were a snooze.
Actor and director Clint Eastwood waxed about Detroit and Chrysler. An M&M stripped "naked" at a party. And stars from the 1990s were everywhere, as were dogs and babies.
Companies paid an average of $3.5 million for a 30-second spot and the right to duke it out Sunday in front of the expected 111 million-plus fans. But there were fewer surprises.
That's mostly because nearly half of the 70 advertisers released their spots in the days before the game. And the ones that waited until game day for the "big reveal" took few risks.
"Advertisers this year are playing it very safe," said Tim Calkins, a professor of marketing at Northwestern University. "They're running spots that are clearly designed to appeal to a broad audience and not to offend."
Sex sells
Advertisers showed a little skin in this year's Super Bowl.
An ad for domain name-hosting site GoDaddy shows race car driver Danica Patrick and fitness expert Jillian Michaels body painting a nude woman. An ad for clothing retailer H&M features soccer star David Beckham in black-and-white in his new line of undies. And online florist Teleflora and automaker Kia both use Victoria Secret's model Adriana Lima.
But perhaps the most blatant example was Toyota's spot for its "reinvented" Camry. The ad features a "reinvented" couch made up of women wearing bikinis.
"It also comes in male," a voiceover says while showing a couch of shirtless men.
Babies and dogs, oh my
Who doesn't love cute animals and babies?
Doritos used both. One spot shows a man being bribed by a dog with Doritos to keep the animal's dirty secret about a cat's disappearance. In another spot, a grandmother uses a slingshot to hoist a baby to grab a bag of Doritos that belongs to a boy in a tree who was taunting the baby.
Those ads were crowd favorites, said Peter Dabol, who analyzes advertising effectiveness at research firm Ace Metrix. It polled 500 viewers about the ads to find their favorites.
Likewise, Skechers shoe company introduced a running sneaker with an ad showing a French bulldog wearing the shoes and winning a greyhound race. A Volkswagen ad portrays a dog that loses weight to be able to chase a Beetle.
The stars were out
Celebrities always draw attention. And advertisers took a gamble that celebs alone would be enough to grab attention.
Chrysler, one of nine automakers advertising during the game, aired an ad starring Eastwood talking about the rebirth of Chrysler and Detroit. The two-minute "Imported from Detroit" ad, one of the few spots not released before the game, follows the company's ad last year that starred rapper Eminem.
"How do we come from behind, how do we come together and how do we win?" Eastwood asks. "Detroit is showing us it can be done. What's true about them is true about all of us."
Real-estate company Century 21's ad shows an agent outdoing speed skater Apolo Ohno on the ice, business mogul Donald Trump in business and former football player Deion Sanders at an open house.
In a Pepsi ad, The X Factor winner Melanie Amaro belts out Respect for King Elton John. "Pepsi for all," she says. At the end, John finds himself in the dungeon with rapper and reality TV star Flavor Flav.
Nostalgia
Some advertisers attempted to tug at viewers' heart strings by stirring up old, fond memories.
Honda's ad for the CR-V compact sport utility vehicle shows actor Matthew Broderick living a grown-up version of his 1986 hit movie, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The ad includes two dozen references to the movie.
Likewise, an Acura NSX ad features 1990s comedic titan Jerry Seinfeld battling with late-night talk show host Jay Leno over the sports car. The ad includes Seinfeld references like a cameo by the Soup Nazi character. And Downy fabric softener's pre-game ad remade one of the most classic commercials of all time, Coca-Cola's 1980 spot "Mean Joe Greene."
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