General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE)'s NBC Universal unit will charge $3 million per 30-second advertising spot in the 2009 Super Bowl, according to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required). Is it me, or does that strike anyone as particularly insane? The deal is this: I would be that many disinterested fans watch the Super Bowl just for the ads alone. The reason? These are the best of the best, attention-grabbing and inventive commercials.

So, why don't ad agencies and PR flacks do this the rest of the year? The only Super Bowl ad that stuck in my mind this year was Tide's 'talking stain" ad, which probably cost a few dollars to produce and was enormously effective. The cost of the campaign was the cost of the ad, of course. All those other advertisers that spend millions on Super Bowl ads this year? Can't remember one of them.

The price for a 2008 Super Bowl 30-second ad spot was $2.7 million, so NBC is upping the game here a bit. Is that ad inventory worth it? With media changing all the time, television is still a lucrative game, and smart advertisers are combining the web and television into complementary market platforms. Like the Tide commercial referenced above, the entire ad was designed to drive traffic to MyTalkingStain.com, not to your local supermarket to buy the product. That's smart marketing. If you spent $3 million for an ad, would you want the impact of the web to somehow be involved? I thought so -- but not all ads do, apparently.

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%.

General Motors' (NYSE: GM) GMC had an ad on last night's Super Bowl for the first time in years. It cost something in the neighborhood of $5 million to broadcast, and if you're a GM stockholder, you might want to ask: why did GM waste so much money?

The ad (you can see it below) is a spare, black and white cartoon of a human figure rolling a large boulder up a hill. The figure works immensely hard, pushing the rock for over 45 seconds -- an eternity in Super Bowl ad time. Finally, he gets the rock to the peak of the mountain. Fade to a white GMC Yukon hybrid, which, according to the ad, gets 50% better mileage than a regular Yukon.

As an imperfect New England Patriots fan, I stopped watching last night's Super Bowl at half time. After squirming as the New York Giants defense tore through the Patriot's front line and repeatedly sacked quarterback Tom Brady, I had a strong feeling that the Patriots would not win.

Nevertheless, the bad news for me and the many far more loyal Patriots fans, could be good news for investors. According to ITtoolbox, that's because of the Super Bowl Predictor (SBP) -- whenever an "original" NFL team wins the big game, in this case, the Giants -- the market rises. The SBP has been right on the direction of the DOW in 33 of 41 Super Bowls which is an 81% success rate.

With all eyes this weekend on whether the New England Patriots can go undefeated for the whole season and beat the New York Giants in the Super Bowl, here are two stocks that should move up nicely so that you can go to Disney World on the profits.

Ing Groep (NYSE: ING) is certainly best of breed. The bank is very well run, and has not had to write off too much for subprime. It is currently trading with a dividend yield of 5.2% and has a tiny PEG of 0.77. This is a stock that Tom Brady can take to the bank.

Host Hotels and Resorts (NYSE: HST), formerly Host Marriott, the largest hotel real estate investment trust (REIT) in the US, owns some 120 luxury and upscale hotels in North America. Most of its hotels operate under the Marriott and Ritz-Carlton brands and are managed by sister firm Marriott International. Other brands include Four Seasons and Hyatt. It is currently trading with a 4.9% dividend yield and very close to the 52-week low. As the economy starts exiting the slow growth mode, it should do well.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer has no positions in any stock mentioned as of 2/1/08.

With many of the world's top companies lining up to shell out big bucks for Sunday's big game, investors might want to take a look ting-to-do-with-the-stooo.

According (subscription required) to the Wall Street Journal, "Shares of Super Bowl advertisers tend to outperform the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index in the week after the game. A trading strategy based on buying those companies would have beaten the benchmark in 10 of the past 12 years, by an average margin of 1.3 percentage points, the research shows."

Of course once you factor in the trading costs and tax burden of buying a bunch of stocks and selling them a weak later, this isn't such a hot strategy.

Most people think the Super Bowl will be about just the Patriots and the Giants squaring off against each other. For the Israeli company Radvision Ltd. (NASDAQ: RVSN), the actual game will be an afterthought. The small company that has a cutting edge video-conferencing technology will be playing an important role in the Pre-game show.

It was announced that along with LifeSize Communications, Radvision, will connect NFL stars in Phoenix and U.S. Army soldiers stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington during Super Bowl XLII using high definition video communication systems.

"Even football stars have heroes, and the players have tremendous respect for our nation's men and women in uniform," said Coach Charles Hatcher.

As investors from around the world gear up for some Super Bowl fun and excitement, one firm is hoping to score a touchdown from the hype surrounding the world's most watched football

E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC), the beleaguered online broker, plans to spend as much as $4 million for two ads airing during this weekend's Super Bowl.

Is this just some more post-boom, sock puppet lunacy?

Maybe, but today's Wall Street Journal article doesn't think so. As the troubled broker tries to re-cement its image and reputation, the article claims that "the Super Bowl distraction couldn't come at a better time."

Of all the idiotic predictors of market performance (and I would argue that nearly all of them are idiotic: predicting the future direction of the stock market as a whole is darn near impossible), the Super Bowl Indicator has to be the dumbest.

Here's how it work: When an "original" National Football League team wins the big game, the market rises; it falls when the winner is a team that joined the NFL in the merger with the American Football League in 1970. The indicator has an 81% success rate historically.

So if the Patriots win the Super Bowl, that's a bad omen.

The Wall Street Journal devoted an article to this nonsense today [subscription], without any hint of irony or explanation of how incredibly dumb this indicator is.

Far away from prying television cameras, News Corp (NYSE: NWS) Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch and NFL honcho Roger Goodell probably hooted and jumped for joy when the New York Giants and New England Patriots made it into the Super Bowl. Maybe they made "ka-ching!" noises or exchanged high-fives with their underlings.

They couldn't have asked for a better outcome if they had scripted it. There are so many compelling story lines, including whether the Patriots will be the first undefeated NFL team in more than 30 years. The New York -- as in the top media market -- Giants are no slouch for drama either. Who would have thought that Indianapolis Colts quarterback and ubiquitous pitchman Peyton Manning would be watching brother Eli lead the Giants in the sports spectacle to end all sports spectacles.

All this is a huge plus for News Corp's Fox network. A San Diego-Green Bay game --- which would have been great --- wouldn't have drawn the ratings the network needed to meet its guarantees to advertisers. TV commercials are sold based on ratings guarantees. When the programs don't meet the targets, the networks have to "make good" by giving away commercial time on other programs.

The one problem for Fox may be the Super Bowl game itself, which have at times been blowouts. This one won't be much different. Sorry Giants fans, the Patriots are going to go undefeated. News Corp shareholders are probably hoping that the game is at least interesting enough for people to watch the $1 million commercials.

Over the past few weeks we heard a lot of discussion over this year's Super Bowl and the massive $2.6 million CBS pulled in for its 30 second commercials aired during the game. Now that the game has come and gone, thoughts of commercial-related Super Bowl revenue will be put on the back burner for another year,

That is unless you are Peyton Manning, who will wind up being the real advertising winner this year.

According to a report on Bloomberg.com, the Davie-Brown index, which ranks celebrities by their ability to influence product sales, showed that Manning had a 74% awareness among all U.S. consumers. Just before the Super Bowl the star quarterback, who already has quite a few high dollar advertising deals, was at 68%.

A robot working at General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) makes a mistake, gets fired and commits suicide. No, wait, the robot wakes up and realizes it was only having a bad dream. Not funny, says the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Like the Snickers male-on-male kissing ad that I blogged about Tuesday, the GM robot committing suicide ad is getting a lot of negative criticism. Unlike the Snickers ad, which was pulled by the Mars company after the negative feedback, General Motors says it has "no plans" to drop the spot and plans on airing it again during the Feb. 25 Academy Awards broadcast.

To me, the only thing worse than having an ad that is received so poorly is not having the good sense to pull it fast enough. GM likely spent over $2 million for the backlash they are facing now -- including former Energy secretary Donald Hodel saying that anyone who loses someone to suicide in the near future should consider suing GM. So why exactly would GM pay more to put this same ad on the Oscar stage?

Looking at this another way, I think this sort of thing is likely to drive down the price of advertising at the Super Bowl, which is often criticized as being a waste of money for larger, established corporations.

"Quick, do something manly!" one of the actors in the Snickers ad exclaimed, after kissing his male counterpart.

Too late. The male-kissing-male ad, which was featured during Super Bowl XLI on Sunday, will not air again after complaints from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the Human Rights Campaign.

Maybe it was the wrong tactic -- this year's Super Bowl was kicked off by Cirque de Soleil and featured Prince at half time. Maybe they should have gone for a more metrosexual look. After all, a Chevrolet ad featuring topless men (including the Naked Cowboy) was one of the more highly rated ads of this year's Super Bowl.

But personally, if I had to choose an ad not to see again, it would be the General Motors (NYSE: GM) ad with the robot worker committing suicide. Did it not occur to the company, which is in the process of major downsizing, that that ad may just hit a little too close to home?

Eric Buscemi is an editor at Theflyonthewall.com.

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.

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT), which is in the midst of a huge Vista promotion, will be sitting on the sidelines at the Super Bowl, according to Bloomberg News.

That's right, Microsoft won't be running any advertisements on a show that will attract about 90 millions of viewers. Yeah, I know it's expensive but what's $2.6 million for a 30-second spot for the world's largest software company. Well, apparently too much.

Microsoft's decision underscores the new reality of advertising, which is return on investment or ROI. Marketing departments have to justify whether their spending is going to give their company the most bang for their buck. That's lead to a shift of dollars away from traditional media to the Internet where companies can precisely measure the effectiveness of their spending.

Even so, Microsoft's decision is odd. The company told Bloomberg that it decided to advertise on "CSI" and the Academy Awards broadcast where "there is less competition." There's also less viewers.

CBS Corp. (NYSE:CBS) will make bucket loads of money from Sunday's game between the Chicago Bears and Indianapolis Colts and there are plenty of companies willing to pay big bucks to participate. Let's hope that unlike previous years the game won't be blowout.