Superbowl Sunday is this week, are you ready? While you are busy preparing that perfect dip for your significant other, or simply for your girlfriends, thousands of companies are vying for those prized 30 second commercial spots, most of which cost 3.0 million dollars or more. That’s right for every 10 seconds of advertising on that special Sunday in February, companies pay at least 1 million dollars, and in a recession no less!!

Last year’s list of best and worst, compiled by Time magazine, show many popular ads from the past 43 Superbowls including ads from Budweiser, Pepsi and a millennium favorite, GoDaddy.com. If you’re into the game you may not spend as much time paying attention to the commercials, but if you are like I am, you spend much more time glued to set during the commercials than the game. Forbes also has a great list explaining more about the price of advertising and toll it takes on companies.

The commercials are talked about for days, weeks, months and sometimes even years after the scoring touchdown has been analyzed and re-analyzed. These ads, thanks to the Internet, now have the ability to go viral within minutes of being seen on the big screens across America, so does that explain the price? Are companies paying for the actual “face-time” on television sets, or are they paying fo

r the bragging rights and publicity after the fact?

No one knows for sure, however, one thing I can tell you about 2010’s Superbowl 44 ads is that Pepsi will not be one of them. Pepsi has recently decided that 2010’s commercial price is simply too expensive in these tough economic times for them to compete. They, however, may be the smartest of us all. In many Superbowls the company purchases at least several ads, which could cost upwards of 10 million dollars and they’ve decided to re-direct that money to a full-on advertising movement, and are getting press for it. That means that not only are they saving a bundle by bowing out of the Superbowl Ad game, they are also getting publicity side-by-side with Superbowl 44 without dropping a single dime. I wonder what the Men, and Women, of MAD MEN would have to say about this? Although, back in the 60s and 70s I don’t think Superbowl Ads had such pull.

Comment below with your favorite ads either from past Superbowls or during Superbowl 44, I’d love to hear who you think had the best ads to take up the spots made available by Pepsi.