Okay, let’s face it; the game was better than the commercials. It’s okay. It happens sometimes. Not often, but sometimes.

Despite the average-at-best commercial line-up, Pavone’s annual commercial poll, SpotBowl, pulled in 5.5 million hits and 162,000 votes — a 60 percent increase over last year’s vote totals — from ad fans across the nation and around the world. The winner by a whisker was Bridgestone Firestone’s “Avoiding Squirrels.” It was the second year in a row a furry little rodent took the SpotBowl title. (Last year’s winner was Blockbuster’s “Mouse.”) Personally, I was pulling for Tide’s brilliant “Talking Stain” spot or Bud Light’s cavemen (“Wheel suck!”). E-Trade’s “Baby Investor” ads weren’t too bad either, even though the whole talking baby thing has been done before. 

In many ways, this year’s SpotBowl was the most successful ever, from a newly redesigned site to record-setting vote totals to over 150 radio interviews with Pavone spokespersons on stations coast-to-coast, including some coverage in the LA Times ,Washington Post and CNNMoney.com.

It took a lot of hard work from so many members of the thinkbank team, including our public relations department (working hard to drive massive amounts of traffic to the site) and our interactive squad (working hard to keep the site up-and-running amid all that traffic). I also want to thank our clients and friends of the thinkbank who voted, helped spread the word about SpotBowl and offered insight for the expert opinions page. It’s always nice to share the spotlight with you.

Feel free to check out videos of all the spots and the complete list of rankings over on SpotBowl. And, as usual, if you have any feedback (good, bad or in between), I’d love to hear it!