Sentimentality ruled in this year’s Super Bowl ad

competition. The consumer Ad Meter panel for USA Today

picked the latest Clydesdale spot for Budweiser as the

best – a heart-tugging story of a horse and trainer being

reunited. But a panel of ad industry experts and consumers

polled by the Wall Street Journal put Jeep on top for its

halftime tear-jerker about military families waiting for their

loved ones to return home.

Jeep had the time advantage. The Chrysler Group

unit bought a full two minutes of CBS broadcast

time for the military-themed spot voiced by

Oprah Winfrey. It did well with the USA Today

Ad Meter panel as well, coming in at fifth place.

Ad Age agreed with the Ad Meter folks,

giving four stars to the Bud spot and applauding

Anheuser-Bush InBev for again making the

horses the stars of the spot. “Weepy, sentimental,

nostalgic. I don’t care,” the reviewer wrote.

Both panels went with humor for their number two

pick. The Ad Meter folks liked the “Miracle Stain” spot from

Tide, with the outcome of the game determining that the

version aired showed a male fan with a stain on his 49ers

jersey depicting NFL great Joe Montana, of San Francisco

fame, of course. With fans lining up at her home to see the

“miracle stain,” the man’s wife washed the stain out with

Tide and ends the spot in her own Baltimore jersey, saying

“Go Ravens.”

The WSJ panel gave second place to Taco Bell’s spot

featuring 87-year-old Bernie Goldblatt and other seniors

sneaking out of their retirement home for a wild night on

the town.

Dead last in the Ad Meter rankings was GoDaddy.

com, whose ad depicted the “sexy” side of the website

company with model Bar Refaeli and the “smart” side with

a geeky character actor called Walter.