A Social Network Review of Super Bowl Commercials Two Doritos spots made the top 10, including "Sling Baby," above. LONG before social media transformed the way Super Bowl commercials were evaluated, USA Today assembled focus groups each year that judged the advertising hits and flops. The results of the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter panels, introduced in 1989, became closely watched scorecards that influenced how spots in the game were created. How influential did the Ad Meter become? A Super Bowl advertiser, CareerBuilder, that fared well in the Ad Meter in 2006 placed its account in review when its commercials failed to make the top 10 in the Ad Meter a year later. Now, in a first, USA Today is adding a social network to the mix by teaming up with Facebook for the public to view, rate and - of course, this being social media - share the spots. The results are to be published by USA Today on Wednesday, two days after the newspaper reported the results of the Ad Meter panels for Super Bowl XLVI, which included 286 volunteers assembled in McLean, Va., and Phoenix. "Given the impact of social media in how America is discussing and rating Super Bowl ads, we felt this was a logical evolution," said Sandra Micek, senior vice president for marketing at USA Today, which is based in McLean and owned by Gannett. The panels will continue, providing "an immediate litmus test of what's registering with viewers" of the Super Bowl, she added, and the Facebook voting will "broaden our reach," creating "the nice combination of the panels and what's happening in the broader conversation." The public voting on what is now the USA Today/Facebook Super Bowl Ad Meter took place in the Ad Meter app on facebook.com as well as on admeter.usatoday.com. It began during the game on Sunday and ended on Tuesday. The venture is the first time that Facebook has offered its users a chance to vote on the merits of Super Bowl spots, said Tom Arrix, vice president for global media solutions at the New York office of Facebook. "We're seeing the Super Bowl, formerly a one-day experience, evolving into more of a campaign," Mr. Arrix said, with sponsors seeking attention before, during and after the game. Some advertising analysts said they believed it made sense for USA Today to integrate social media into the Ad Meter, so long as it continued to keep the results of the two surveys separate. For instance, a commercial for Audi featuring vampires, which finished 20th among the panelists, may have fared better among the public if "17-year-olds who are really into "Twilight" pump up the voting," said Peter Daboll, chief executive of Ace Metrix, a company that measures commercials for effectiveness. (The spot finished No. 9 in the Facebook results.) As it turned out, the results of the vote among consumers and the judgment of the Ad Meter panelists were similar. The panelists ranked "Man's Best Friend," one of two commercials for Doritos, as their most popular spot. The rest of the top 10 included a commercial for Volkswagen, a commercial for Skechers, another commercial for Doritos called "Sling Baby," a commercial for M&M's, and a commercial for Bud Light. The public's favorite commercial in the voting online was "Sling Baby," and the rest of that top 10 also included "Man's Best Friend" and the spots for Bud Light, M&M's, Volkswagen and Skechers. (Several of those commercials also finished in the top 10 of the Ace Metrix survey of most effective Super Bowl ads, including both Doritos spots and the ones for M&M's and Skechers. Also among the Ace Metrix winners were all three commercials that featured the Coca-Cola polar bears.) A notable difference in the two Ad Meter results was the appearance in the public's top 10, in fourth place, of a commercial for the Chrysler Group, "It's Halftime in America," which featured Clint Eastwood. The commercial was not ranked by the panelists because the Ad Meter typically had not included spots that run during halftime. It was included in the public vote because it became a subject of enormous interest in social media. There were more differences between the commercials that landed in the bottom of the rankings among the panelists and the public. The least popular spots among the panelists included "Work," one of two commercials for Bud Light Platinum beer; "Power and Beer," one of two commercials for General Electric; and a commercial for Century 21 featuring celebrities. The commercials in the bottom five of the consumer voting included both commercials for Bud Light Platinum as well as two commercials for GoDaddy.com. USA Today was not the only newspaper to encourage visitors to its Web site to vote on Super Bowl XLVI commercials. The New York Times, on NYTimes.com, asked readers to rate the spots based on six positive and negative criteria. On The Times's site, the commercial ranked as the funniest was one of three commercials for Chevrolet, called "Happy Grad," which was created by the winner of a contest. Mr. Eastwood's Chrysler halftime spot was considered the most memorable. The Volkswagen spot, called "The Dog Strikes Back," was ranked as the most clever. On the negative side, the other General Electric commercial, about making appliances in America, was considered the most boring by the voters on NYTimes.com. A commercial for GoDaddy.com was ranked as the most tasteless, and the Century 21 spot as the weakest.