Super Bowl Commercials 2012: Top 5 Must-Watch Tech Ads

By Anthony Myers | February 06 2012 1:55 PM

Companies spent millions of dollars on Super Bowl 2012 ads, and no less than five tech firms doled out some must-watch gems this year. While Apple didn't buy any ad time during the Super Bowl, one of their arch rivals did, and several Web sites ponied up to get their names out there as well.

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E-Trade, a popular online stock trading Web site featured two new ads featuring their famous talking baby, and Doritos used an obvious Siri lookalike in one of theirs. Additionally, Chase bank debuted a Super Bowl commercial about a new payment app they have available. Teleaflora, an online flower retailer debuted a sexy ad for flowers, but those commercials don't quite make it into the top five.

Best Buy, on the other hand, is one of the companies whose tech commercial during the Super Bowl qualifies it for the top five. That's because it depicted inventors of popular smartphone hardware and software showing off their respective inventions like tiny cameras, the Instagram app, and the game app Words with friends. The inclusion of Words with Friends was notable because it showed the inventors sitting on an airplane, and then hanging their heads when the flight attendant came over. It was an obvious reference to actor Alec Baldwin's recent run-in with a flight attendant over his use of the same game during a flight.

Next, there was Go Daddy, the Web hosting company who had been widely criticized for their early support of the anti-piracy legislation SOPA. Go Daddy, like TelaFlora, made use of sexy, scantily clad Danica Patrick to tout their new .co domain name service. They also hired the Pussycat Dolls in another spot to advertise their Web hosting service. Samsung didn't show off any skin in their ads, going more in the offbeat direction like Best Buy and E-Trade; only, more musical. Thing Called Love is an over the top song used in the commercial to show people standing in line to buy a new smartphone, obviously the iPhone, who then see the Samsung Galaxy Note and instantly fall in love with it. Time Warner Cable hired actor and comedian Ricky Gervais to brag about their service, but there was no singing or bare skin. Sorry.

Finally, there was Hulu, who used actor Will Arnett to show off something called the Hulubratory, a sort of behind the scenes take on what Hulu is all about. All the commercials are shown below, so check them out and tell us in the comments which you like best.

Best Buy