An estimated 103.4 million people watched the Philadelphia Eagles beat the New England Patriots in Sunday’s Super Bowl. And, while it was the smallest audience for television’s biggest yearly event since 2009, it still was a national showcase for advertisers and advertising. Last evening,  close to 200 members of the D.C. ad community met at Penn Social to discuss and debate the 2018 Super Bowl ads at the annual American Advertising Federation DC (AAF DC) event Between Downs. The panel and discussion was  moderated by David Meeks, Managing Editor of USAToday Sports.  Joining Meeks (from right to left in photo) were Tuesday Poliak, Executive Creative Director, Wunderman; Josh Golden, Creative Director, Yes&; Kathy Baird, Managing Director, Ogilvy; Michael Dumlao, Director of Brand, Booz Allen Hamilton; and, Sawyer Blur, Senior Media Strategist, CHIEF.

In general, the sense of the panel was that the best ad(s) was from Tide to Tide: “Is every Super Bowl Ad going to be a Tide Ad”.  The Procter & Gamble brand aired four ads  “that attempted to make every Super Bowl ad look like a Tide ad – and vice versa”, stated AdAge.

The top Super Bowl ads recognized by the panel were:

1. Tide
2. Pepsi’s Doritos Blaze vs. Mountain Dew Ice
3. Alexa Loses Her Voice
4. NFL Dirty Dancing

Verizon’s First Responders ad won the “heartfelt” vote from the panel and it appeared the audience concurred.

Not much time was spent on the worst ads, but the main ad cited by the panel as really missing the mark was Built to Serve.

Capitol Communicator has a number of Super Bowl posts in Advertising.