Feb 5, 2008 6:05 AM, PROMO Xtra, By Richard Tedesco

Giant carrier pigeons, disciplinary Dalmatians, Underdog and screaming squirrels were among the characters animating this year’s most effective Super Bowl ads.

Animals were well represented in the ads that drew headlines in news reports and turned heads in an annual survey conducted by HCD Research.

FedEx’s spot featuring the giant, helmeted carrier pigeons that weren’t quite up to the task of hauling autos was the top-rated ad in HCD’s results. That was followed closely by the Budweiser ad featuring a Dalmatian training a Clydesdale that didn’t quite make the cut for the Anheuser-Busch beer-hauling team to the tune of the “Rocky” theme.

Coca-Cola’s spot featuring Thanksgiving balloons battling for a coke bottle balloon—with Underdog and a rug rat losing to Charlie Brown—placed third. Diet Pepsi’s ad showing the soda reviving a sequence nodding out like bobbleheads and Bridgestone’s squirrel screaming at an oncoming car rounded out HCD’s top five.

All five ads scored between 75 and 81 points on a scale of 100 in HCD’s rating system. HCD employs a panel of 10 academics, ad agency executives and one Hollywood producer to narrow the field of Super Bowl spots to the top 25. A nationally representative sample of 2,500 participants canvassed online rated the ads with regard to level of interest, emotional impact and anticipated “watercooler” buzz.

A panel of 234 viewers assembled by USA Today judged the top ads similarly, putting Bud’s “Rocky” ad first, followed by Coke’s balloons. SoBe LifeWater’s spot featuring animated lizards dancing with model Naomi Campbell placed third in that survey—ninth in HCD’s ranks—followed by a Vitaminwater ad with Shaquille O’Neal portraying a jockey and a Pepsi-Cola ad featuring Justin Timberlake getting hit in the crotch by a mailbox post—twice. The latter two ads made the top 15 in HCD’s rankings.

HCD’s top 10 included Bud Light’s ad with cavemen misusing the wheel one of them just invented, a nasty nursing ferret in the front seat of a Toyota and a precocious toddler trading stocks on E-Trade.

Glenn Kessler, president and CEO of HCD Research, said he was non-plussed by the ad barrage—particularly compared to the drama of the New York Giants come-from-behind defeat of the New England Patriots. “It was disappointing,” he said. “Nothing broke through. There was no innovation.”

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