The Most, and Least, Effective Olympic Ads

IAG, a Nielsen-owned firm that tracks consumers' response to commercials, says this Coke ad is the best-received Olympic spot. Watch:

The Wall Street Journal says this and other top-rated Olympics ads -- this one for Oreo, for instance, and this one for GE -- succeeded by tapping into the wellspring of emotion the Games arouse in viewers. I'm not sure I buy that. Is this spot really poignant, or is it just cute?

I'll tell you what ads are emphatically not giving me the warm fuzzies: the endless loop of about four different Visa and Budweiser spots inflicted on anyone who watches the Games on NBCOlympics.com. The site itself is terrific: There's tons of video to watch, and the quality is more than high enough to enjoy many events. (The exception is sports where there's a lot going on all over the screen.) But, man, after a weekend of heavy viewing, am I ever sick of hearing about Michael Phelps' big feet and those always-fresh Budweiser bottles. Now that online video is finally starting to mature as a medium, this sort of repetition has to stop. If you wouldn't do it on TV, don't do it on the web.