[Unidentified Female:] Next time, use Fed Ex.
[Verjee:] That Fed Ex commercial from the Super Bowl was voted number one in the "Wall Street Journal"'s online poll. So now it's time for a little Monday morning quarterbacking in "A.M. Pop." Which was your favorite Super Bowl commercial? Joining us now with her take on the spots that scored during the big game and the ones that didn't is Suzanne Vranica. Thanks so much for joining us.
[Suzanne Vranica, Advertising Reporter:] Thanks for having me.
[Verjee:] So why was the Fed Ex one such a big hit?
[Vranica:] I think Fed Ex is always a big, great advertiser during Super Bowl. They know what works. It's always clever laughter. Really surprise endings no one saw coming. Sprint Nextel is another one that just was phenomenal last night.
[Verjee:] I thought they wrote the script great on the Fed Ex one.
[Vranica:] They know their target. You know, lots of beer- swilling guys in college watching these games. They know what works. And it was really a surprise. And that's the key. You have to surprise and you have to entertain. If you go for serious, you're really, you know, risking your brand out there.
[Verjee:] You talked about the Sprint Nextel one. Let's listen to that for a minute.
[Unidentified Male:] I can watch live TV on my new Sprint phone. Well, my Sprint phone has TV and it downloads music. I can check e-mail. I have that. And crime deterrent. What? Try and take my wallet. Give me your aw!
[Announcer:] Live TV, wireless music downloads, e-mail and crime deterrent.
[Unidentified Male:] I'm filing a grievance, Ben!
[Announcer:] On the Sprint Powervision network.
[Verjee:] All right. Why was that one so appealing? I mean, who was it targeting?
[Vranica:] Totally targeting those you know, people have parties. Super Bowl is about loud crowds, breaking through the clutter. You know, you're competing with 60 kind of great ads that are running through the night. So a surprise ending. And anything that's you know, yes, it's a little violent, but people want to you know, are drinking and they want to be surprised and they want to be entertained. And that certainly did it.
[Verjee:] Chad Myers, our weather anchor, was very entertained by the secret fridge, as many people were, as well. Tell us a little bit about that one and why that worked.
[Vranica:] Well, Anheuser Busch, you know, had five minutes of air time. They basically study and research these audiences all year long. The test their ads with about 500 people before the game. That ad did phenomenally well last night. You know, had a surprise twist at the end. Great character acting. And again, you've got college boys that love that stuff and that's their target audience these days.
[Verjee:] College boys and others didn't like the Burger King ad. It was one of the biggest losers. Why?
[Vranica:] I think it was a great disappointment. Everybody you know, Burger King's actually got their brand back on track after years of really lots of fumbling in advertising. And everybody expected some dramatic King advertising. And what they got was this big song and dance number. People thought it was cute, but they left scratching their heads. People we called last night during after- hours polling said horrible. Really horrible remarks about it. So they didn't do well.
[Verjee:] How about the ads compare to last year and the years prior to that? I mean, it seems less risque, I think, you know?
[Vranica:] I think last night, people were really happy about what they saw. Last year's ads got toned down because of the whole indecency debate. This year I think advertisers really took off their, you know, gloves and came out punching. You had violence back a little bit. You had tons of surprises. So I would say a step up from last year, but not back to where it should be.
[Verjee:] What about the Dove one? The self-esteem, the girls? True colors?
[Vranica:] It's hard to hate an ad like that, you know? Most people had no problem with it. And a lot of people thought it was just a nice break from what was going on. You know, tons of sophomoric humor going on all night long, so what's 30 seconds or 60 seconds, a chance to kind of take a breath and see something beautiful? Beautifully shot.
[Verjee:] And more women were also watching, too. A significant number of women.
[Vranica:] Oh absolutely. You have 90 million viewers, and over 30 million of them were women. So why not target them?
[Verjee:] Does this translate very quickly into ad sales?
[Vranica:] For some countries, it does. I think you have to follow it up. You have to have other things going on in the background, tie-ins at the supermarket. Emerald Nuts saw their sales double last year, you know, for the ten weeks after the game. That's an amazing kind of register rate. And, of course, everything plays into that. But, you know, look at the dot-com craze. How many companies went IPO just based on the fact that they had a hit commercial on the Super Bowl?
[Verjee:] Suzanne Vranica with "The Wall Street Journal." Good to talk to you.
[Vranica:] Thanks for having me.
[Verjee:] Thank you. Thanks for coming in. Back to Fabio I mean Miles!
[O'brien:] Thank you very much. I was going to do that sock puppet thing. Remember that one? What was that one? Pets.com? Tell me what it was? Yes. They still exist? Are they still in business? I guess they are, I don't know. In a moment, the nation's top lawman says what is good enough for Lincoln and Roosevelt is good enough for Bush. But is today's war somehow different? Jeff Toobin will read us our rights ahead. And later, the power of the pen. A picture worth a thousand protesters, some of them very violent. Is it a question of freedom of speech, or is it just gratuitously offensive? We'll check in with one of the great cartoonists and his opinion will surprise you. Stay with us for more AMERICAN MORNING.