So, on Friday I took a look at the potential of some Super Bowl advertisements, which leaves today to digest the commercials and say who we thought had the best commercial.

First things first, congratulations New Orleans -- what a win. Second of all, I need to make an editorial comment before I reveal my thoughts on the best commercial: what's up with all the guys in their underwear? I saw enough tighty whities in the span of two minutes during the first half to last the rest of my life. I know one thing, I am not going to go to CareerBuilder.com or wear Dockers thanks to the visage of pasty white men in their underwear standing at the water cooler or singing about pants.

North Koreans don't need DVR technology any more. The most important purpose of these devices -- to fast forward through commercials -- no longer applies, now that the reclusive Communist state has banned television commercials from the airwaves.

According to the Yonhap news agency, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was upset when he saw commercials showing up on Korean Central Television in early July. The report quotes a source close to Kim as saying the ruler's response to the ad was: "What is this? That kind of rubbish appeared when China started reforms and openness." He was obviously pissed and hasn't been open to suggestions that he follow China's lead in embracing a limited form of capitalism.

This post is part of a series on celebrity spokespeople who ended up doing serious harm to the brands they were hired to promote, or vice versa. See how we rank the 20 top spokesperson fiascos.

When I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, I remember watching O.J. Simpson in Hertz (NYSE:HTZ) ads dash through the airport on my television screen as a spunky old woman yelled "go, O.J., go." It seems like these spots were always featured during breaks of favorite ABC TV shows "Charlie's Angels", "The Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island." I even imitated O.J. when I went to the airport, much to the horror of my parents. I thought that, next to TV private eye Jim Rockford, Simpson was the coolest guy in the world.

Of course, no one realized at the time that Simpson's nice-guy image was an act. When he led police on his infamous low-speed chase through the freeways of Southern California, people saw O.J. running again -- this time from the law, under suspicion for the murder of his wife and waiter Ron Goldman. Again, people thought about Hertz. When he was acquitted, people thought about Hertz. For people my age (40), O.J. and Hertz will be forever linked. That's the power of branding.

About the only thing O.J, is endorsing these days is plastic football helmets and old pictures of himself, which is the root of his current legal troubles in Las Vegas. People are less interested in him in that world. At least one sports memorabilia dealer has his O.J. Simpson-autographed merchandise on sale.

To be fair, Hertz severed its ties to Simpson when allegations of domestic abuse first surfaced in 1992. Since then, advertisers do a much more thorough background check on their celebrities before hiring them to tell us how we should spend our discretionary income. We are a nation of sheep. The problem is that we as Americans continue to look to our celebrities before making important decisions, which is a pity.

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I'm still enjoying the sweet taste left in my mouth from this morning's Coca-Cola Classic (I treat myself to three of four of the syrupy concoctions each week). I'm also still enjoying -- at least once a day -- Coca-Cola's (NYSE: KO) "It's Mine" Super Bowl ad, my favorite among the bunch. The dueling parade balloons concept (available to watch here) was clever and well-executed, nicely scored (with a 60-second excerpt from the Rossini Overture), and complete with a big payoff at the end. Also note the thoughtful inclusion of a young brunette girl, football in hand, around the 50-second spot. (Anyone else reminded of Lucy Van Pelt?)

Most importantly, the ad had solid brand placement, frequently reminding viewers what was being advertised. This was not the case with Coke's chief competitor, PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP), which employed dancing lizards and supermodel Naomi Campbell to publicize its SoBe Life Water. Problem was, "Life Water" was barely mentioned.

But the fun of Super Bowl Sunday is behind us, and the business of earnings is ahead. Coca-Cola is set to announce its fourth-quarter results tomorrow. The mean estimate among analysts is calling for per-share results of 55 cents, a 5.8% improvement from year-ago results of 52 cents per share. The high estimate at this point is 57 cents, with a low of 50 cents; the revenue estimate weighs in at 5.77%.

Back in 2000, a variety of dot-coms – like Pets.com, LastMinuteTravel.com, Monster.com (Nasdaq: MNST) and so on – spent gobs of money on Super Bowl commercials. Of course, it marked the height of the bubble. Since then, upstart companies have been mostly afraid of producing commercials.

Hey, take a look at this classic ad from Pets.com (now defunct), during the 2000 Super Bowl:

But don't be afraid. While I'm not suggesting that you shell out $2.7 million for a Super Bowl ad, I still think things are different. After all, it's fairly cost-effective to advertise on local cable channels. What's more, online video is also surging.

So how can you crank out a top-quality 30-second spot?

Let's take a look:

Production: Technology is making it incredibly cheap to create commercials. "All you need is an Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Mac laptop and the iMovie software that comes with the computer," said Rob Frankel, who is the author of The Revenge of Brand X and has his own marketing firm. "And just about any MiniDV camera can produce broadcast-quality video."

That's all he needed to create this spot:

To spice things up, you can use stock footage and music clips (which may even be free). "A simple Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) search will find a lot of stock content," said Frankel.

Crafting the right message: It's temping to be too cute or cutting-edge when putting together a 30-second spot. Unfortunately, the result is that your audience ignores things – or is just confused. Some tips:

• Focus on one idea (that's easy to understand). Clutter is your enemy.
• Avoid special effects and location shoots.
• Don't star in your own commercials.

"Notice that some of the best commercials these days offer one central image or theme with even stark or simplified backgrounds," Rachel Weingarten, who is the president of GTK Marketing Group. "It might be wiser to spend more on the concept and come up with a very clever and catchy phrase or theme or even sweepstakes or promo that can drive people to your website, retail location or some other call to action."

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

Television viewers are using Tivo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO) to shirk their civic obligation to watch commercials, and now the industry is fighting back. By tying commercials into programs, the advertising firms are betting that they can get people to stop fast-forwarding through some commercials.

Guinness beer recently designed such a commercial for the Discovery Channel's "Mythbusters" show and, according to The Wall Street Journal, the results were impressive, the Tivo factor aside: "Viewers who saw the Guinness ad on "Mythbusters" remembered the name of the Guinness brand 41% more often than they did when they saw a traditional Guinness ad, according to a study by IAG Research."

It's surprising that advertisers needed the threat of Tivo to start doing this. Doesn't it make sense that viewers would be more interested in a commercial related to the show that they're watching? Commercials annoy most television viewers, but they could be a lot more fun if they were in some way related to the show -- and hey! Maybe we'd actually pay attention to them, instead of using them as a time for a trip to the fridge.

With Nielsen now tracking ratings for commercials, there will be increased pressure on these firms to put together ads that viewers actually watch and respond to.

Despite what my driver's license might say, my teenage years don't seem that far behind me. The hormonal shifts, the looming life decisions, the constant dissatisfaction with one's appearance ... confidence was never at the top of the list for me or many of my high-school friends. Clearasil, long-time fighter against embarrassing acne problems, is quite familiar with this reality and is using that concept to sell more zit cream and other skin-care products.

The company, which is under the U.K.-based Reckitt Benckiser umbrella, has introduced three new commercials, all of which are raising eyebrows among conservative parents.

Each week, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission publishes a report known as the Commitments of Traders Report ("COT"), which breaks down aggregate trader positions ( "open interest") in certain futures and options markets into three categories: commercial, non-commercial, and nonreportable.

According to the CFTC, commercial operators, or "hedgers," are "engaged in business activities hedged by the use of futures or option markets." Non-commercial operators, or "large speculators," include individuals and firms, such as hedge funds, that engage in large-scale speculative buying and selling. Nonreportables, or "small speculators," comprise all other participants, including individual traders.

I just saw a great article on TheStreet.com on the cost of watching TV. It estimates the cost for the average person of watching TV, over 45 years, is $3.7 million dollars. Now that sounds like a lot, but let me expound on how they got there. First take the $100/month cable bills and invest that into a brokerage account. That $1,200 a year compounded at 8% is a cool quarter of a million alone. Then there are TVs, electricity, movie rental and pay-per-view and not to mention junk -- I mean products -- you buy because you saw them on the Home Shopping Network.

One fact cited -- which really surprised me -- was that for each hour per week of TV watched you spend an additional $200 per year on stuff. According to my calculation that is $3.84 an hour of junk per hour bought because I saw it on TV. As I sit here wearing Reebok shoes and sipping my cool, refreshing Mountain Dew, I think that just can't be right. I do not watch HSN or QVC; but something tells me all those billion-dollar companies only buy advertising for one reason ... it works!

So this brings up the $64,000 question. Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? That would require turning off the TV; getting started on those home improvements, getting a part-time job, or starting that home-based business. Time is money and just what is your TV-watching time worth? If you are still watching "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader," you may not be.

The holy grail of advertising these days is trying to find exactly what customers are looking for, when they are looking for it and when they are most likely to convert into buyers. In radio and TV advertising, special phone numbers and websites can serve a tracking purpose that allows statisticians to pull out data like this. Online web searching installs a whole new level of data collection that lets sellers really know their buyers (and customize marketing as appropriate). But just how do those customers actually respond to certain forms of advertising? Why are only a fraction of advertising viewers doing anything in reaction to an ad -- why not all 100%?

Biological experiments that take stock of physiological monitoring are nothing new in the advertising arena, and at NBC, advertisers want to know more about consumer reactions as the television medium continues to be under assault from ad dollars moving online (along with advertisers themselves). In order to bring ads back to television, the medium has to evolve beyond passive and impressions-based advertising to one of actually engaging customers and measuring the experience. But what makes up such an experience? Watching KFC (NYSE: YUM)'s absurd ads with a bastardized version of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" being screamed in the background, I think, actually drives customers away from the fast-food chain. Perhaps I am wrong.

NBC's research, though, has a new twist: It measures customer engagement to commercial advertisements viewed in fast-forward mode. With more folks in the U.S. using TiVo and other digital video recorders that allow fast-forwarding through commercials, TV networks are losing ad dollars to advertisers that don't want to pay for viewers that zap right through commercials. But, if those viewers have some kind of meaningful engagement to the commercial, even when fast forwarded, then the networks regain some ammunition to negotiate ad rates.

The New York Times (permalink) describes a Trojan condoms commercial that was rejected by both CBS and Fox:

IN a commercial for Trojan condoms that has its premiere tonight, women in a bar are surrounded by anthropomorphized, cellphone-toting pigs. One shuffles to the men's room, where, after procuring a condom from a vending machine, he is transformed into a head-turner in his 20s. When he returns to the bar, a fetching blond who had been indifferent now smiles at him invitingly.

Interesting. In a letter to Trojan, Fox wrote that "Contraceptive advertising must stress health-related uses rather than the prevention of pregnancy."

Here's what I don't understand: Isn't anyone who uses a condom for health-related issues also interested in pregnancy prevention. Is the line of thinking really "Gee. I'd like to get pregnant with this guy I don't really know, but he could have STDs." And while people can have all kinds of reasons for using condoms, even in a committed relationship, isn't the purpose of condoms for health-related issues relevant mostly for casual encounters? I guess I don't understand the distinction that FOX is making.

Maybe I'm just perplexed because this sense of traditional morality is coming from the network that wanted to run a special on how O.J. Simpson would have killed his wife and her friend, if he did.

From the beginning, the Apple iPhone launch date has been a moving target: first rumored to be as early as January, it then skipped around June, from June 11 to June 22 to June 20. In Steve Jobs' uncertain speech at the D conference last week, it sounded like the very end of June. But who could be sure? Finally, this morning, a rumor with some teeth from Engadget: June 29 was the date. And then the confirmation: the television commercials, one of which featured the all-important June 29 date, were posted on Apple's web site. And a few minutes after I drooled over the photos, there the date was on my very own TV (NBC, if you're wondering).

As a first-time Apple fanatic (the iPhone will be my first ever Apple purchase, and I've been drooling since January 9), I'm disappointed that I have to wait until June 29, when I was oh-so-hoping I'd have it by mid-June at the latest (I'm eight months pregnant and very much expecting to deliver the news of my new baby's birth via iPhone). But, as my husband says while watching the dripping-with-touch commercial: "boy, that's a cool phone!" and I'm predicting great things and long lines to secure one of these beautiful specimens. As the guys at Switched.com say: "these new previews of the phone and its capabilities make a somewhat acceptable consolation prize" for the later-than-hoped date.

Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) will score big on this one, and even though the date is later than hoped, at least it's not delayed beyond the fuzzy target of "late June" and at least the iPhone is real, it's really almost here.

Walt Disney Co.'s (NYSE:DIS) has kept fans of ABC's hit show "Lost" waiting 13 weeks to learn about the fate of the most popular castaways since "Gilligans Island." Fans will debate forever about whether it was worth the wait. Investors have a dog in this fight too.

ABC is a really important business for Burbank, Calif.-based Disney. The company's broadcasting business, which includes ABC, accounted for $1.47 billion of the company's $8.78 billion in revenue in the fiscal fourth quarter. Of course, hits like "Grey's Anatomy" and "Desperate Housewives" also help as do DVD sales. None though have the fanatical following of "Lost."

Creating a hit TV series has always been difficult. It's even more so now given the huge number of choices that people have to amuse themselves. This puts ABC in the driver's seat with advertisers. For example, if a company really wants to buy a spot on "Lost." ABC can ask it to also buy spots on less popular shows. Most commercial time is solid in blocks though networks will sell a single spot on a program if the price is right.

Chief Executive Bob Iger deserves credit for spearheading the resurgence of ABC. Investors, though, shouldn't buy stock in entertainment companies because of one hit show. Disney also has plenty of other things going for it including ESPN, its theme parks and its emerging digital business.

People should think of "Lost" as a franchise. Get a load of the Lost stuff for sale at the ABC store. That's only the tip of the iceberg. You can bet that there will be more DVDS, t-shirt and coffee mugs. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a "Lost" movie at some point. All of this should be music to the ears of Disney investors.

CBS Corp. (NYSE:CBS) scored a touchdown with the Super Bowl even if advertisers didn't.

Ratings for the NFL championship game were the best they have been in seven years, according to Bloomberg News. The game had something for everybody unlike many Super Bowls which have been boring one-sided blowout.

Speaking of boring, what do you think of the commercials? Can you remember any of them? I sure can't. Paul La Monica of CNN/Money describes them as "boring, poorly executed (and) unmemorable," and I couldn't agree more. Kevin Federline? Please.

But investors should look at the reported $2.6 million price tag for spots with some degree of skepticism. The market for television commercil time isn't transparent. Many of the prices quoted for commercials in the media are based on rate card information, which is equivilent to the list price of a new car. As you can imagine, big advertisers get big breaks off the listed price. Commercial time also is usually sold in blocks, which makes things even more complicated.

The Super Bowl, of course, is different. Advertisers will pay a premium to reach so many eyeballs at once, but I wonder if every advertiser on the game paid $2.6 million or that was the average price. Plus, I bet there is a difference between the price that was paid for a spot in the first quarter and one after the two-minute warning.

Still, it's another impressive win for CBS whose shares have jumped 23 percent over the past year while former corporate sibling Viacom Inc. (NYSE:VIA) is down 2.3 percent.

In its never-ending quest to capture eyeballs, Time Warner is going for laughs. DCComics, home of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, has teamed up with Warner Books to cross promote a pre-publication version of Brad Meltzer's The Book of Fate, a graphic novel thriller chocked full of American historical tidbits.

Also on a comedic note, Turner Broadcasting System announced it will distribute two "very funny broadband destinations: veryfunnyads.com and Laugh Lab." Veryfunnyads.com will be the world's largest online collection of humorous commercials. Viewers will be able to email links to their favorite commercials. Veryfunnyads.com will offer periodic updates to its collection. This just could replace fantasy football leagues as many people's favorite work-time activity. Veryfunnyads.com launched today via a one-hour World's Funniest Commercials show on TBS. Laugh Lab will feature original materials from well known stand-ups, as well as encore performances of comedy materials already distributed by TBS. Viewers will be able to customize their choice of comedy videos.

Using the capabilities provided by its purchase of Truveo, Time Warner subsidiary AOL aims to be the premier web video site. AOL Video will provide online video search capabilities and will also carry thousands of hours of programming by partnering and sharing revenue with Arts and Entertainment network, the History Channel, Nickelodeon and MTV channels. The initial 30,000 videos also include on-demand news segments from ABD, CNN and Reuters. AOL plans to increase its sale of video ads to over $1 billion in the next few years as additional programming, both original and encore performances, is put on the Web. TV ad marketing is already a $60 billion per year industry.