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Feb 5 2008 8:36AM EST

Super Bowl: Which Ads Hit Biggest?

A close game, a writers strike, a couple of big-market teams, each with its own compelling narrative: It all added up to 97 million viewers, the biggest audience for any Super Bowl yet. (The previous record, of 94 million, was set by 1996's Cowboys-Steelers matchup.) In fact, it was the second-most watched broadcast ever, behind only the M*A*S*H finale.

In other words, those $2.7 million 30-second spots turned out to be a bargain -- or at least the ones people liked did. But which ones were those? There's some disagreement.

By the most objective measurement -- pure TV-screen-on-retina contact -- E*Trade's talking, investing baby was the biggest hit of the night, followed by Justin Timberlake for Pepsi and Doritos's revenge-of-the-mouse spot. That's according to TiVo's second-by-second audience measurement.

But that doesn't reflect what happened when viewers shut off their TV sets and switched on their computers. On YouTube, SoBe Life Water's "Thriller"-inspired dancing lizards have drawn the most plays, according to The New York Times, and that infernal GoDaddy commercial-for-a-commercial has also, inexplicably, proved popular.

And AOL's Super Sunday Ad Poll yielded an entirely different set of data. Asked which ads they liked the best, users picked the Budweiser Clydesdale/dalmation Rocky homage, Bridgestone's screaming squirrel (?) and Coca-Cola's thirsty parade floats.

Here are the top five from the AOL poll:

1. Budweiser Clydesdale/dalmatian ad
2. Bridgestone squirrel spot
3. Coca-Cola's Balloons
4. Life Water's Thriller
5. E-Trade's talking baby spot

And here are TiVo's top ten:

1. E-Trade: "Baby" (1)
2. Pepsi Co: "Justin Timberlake"
3. Doritos: "Mouse Trap" (user-generated)
4. Coca-Cola: "James Carville and Bill Frist"
5. Ice Breakers: "Carmen Electra"
6. Bridgestone: "Headlights"
7. Bud Light: "Cavemen"
8. Vitamin Water: "Horse Race"
9. Cars.com Plan B: "Witch Doctor"
10. Life Water: "Thriller"

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