Two Super Bowl spots made by or dreamed up by amateurs

NEW YORK -- Along with the trademark Clydesdales, talking animals and high-end computer graphics, there was a new entry this year in the annual showdown of advertisers in the Super Bowl: amateurs.

Starting in the first quarter, a goofy spot for Doritos showing a hapless driver distracted by a pretty woman passing by marked the first time a purely amateur-created ad aired during the Super Bowl. Frito-Lay, the PepsiCo Inc. division that makes Doritos, ran an online competition to pick the winning spot.

Katie Crabb, a freshman at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point, was the winner of a separate contest by General Motors Corp. and had her idea for an ad made into reality by Chevrolet's marketing division.

Despite being made by a newcomer, that ad was true to the tradition of using oddball humor in Super Bowl ads, showing a number of men stripping off their shirts -- and some other articles of clothing -- at the sight of a new Chevy HHR rolling down the street.

Sight gags were back, including one from Bud Light early in the game showing an unusual tactic for winning at rock-paper-scissors -- throwing an actual rock at the head of your opponent.

FedEx Corp. combined a sight gag with another trademark of big ticket Super Bowl spots, fancy computer graphics, with an other-worldy ad showing an office worker drifting off into space from the world's first office on the moon, only to be clobbered by a passing meteor.

A lot is riding on the ads, and not just because CBS Corp. is charging as much as $2.6 million for a 30-second spot during the game. With some 90 million people watching, it's the most-viewed program all year on television and the ads are subject to intense scrutiny, by both amateurs and the marketing industry.

Coca-Cola Co. was back in the game after a long absence, taking on its rival Pepsi with a number of creative ads, including an homage to Black History Month with an understated ad showing the changing shapes of Coke bottles over time as milestones in black history appeared alongside. Other ads also highlighted Black History Month and highlighted the fact that, for the first time, both coaches in the game are black.

Bud Light, which often swings for the fences with wacky jabs at humor, scored better with Greyser with a different spot showing an auctioneer saying wedding vows at hyper-fast speed. Greyser said that spot had a much broader appeal.

The job-search company CareerBuilder ditched its longtime office-monkey pitchmen of years past in favor of a jungle combat scene among office workers, where office supplies become weapons.

Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University who runs a panel of students to rate the ads, called this year's batch a "mixed bag," saying advertisers were "being safe."