If you believe Americans, it's the biggest sporting event in the world, but sports fans aren't the only people who feverishly await the Super Bowl. It's just as big a deal for the ad world.

From the '1984' Apple commercial premiering in the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII, to the Old Spice 'The man your man could smell like' cmapaign launching online on the day of last year's season ender, the Super Bowl is the biggest day for brands to launch something they think is a bit special. You'd want it to be special, with 30 second spots believed to cost around $3 million.

This year's Super Bowl delivered a lot of big budget ads, but it was the ones that made us laugh that have quickly spread online. In this collection of some of the more memorable spots from Monday's game, Marketing magazine dissects some old rivalries; we pit top brands in alcohol, auto and FMCG against each other and rate who we think came across better.

If you agree or think we judged it poorly, please drop a comment and start the conversation, or have your say through Twitter via @MarketingMag.
 

Battle of the beers

Bud Light Vs Stella Artois

WINNER: Bud Light

Stella Artois brings the star power but Bud continues to keep its ads depicting men emancipated from their wives by the sight of beer fresh with another funny ad.

Battle of the luxury cars

Audi Vs BMW

WINNER: Audi

Audi has laid down the gauntlet to BMW over the last few years, and has seen its share of the luxury car market increase. Audi continues to take it to BMW with this big budget ad and trumps them through humour, a little bit of eccentricity and a lot of Kenny G.

Battle of the snack foods

Snickers Vs Doritos

WINNER: Doritos.

Snickers haven’t even uploaded the video officially to YouTube yet. This ad also shows they haven’t come that far from the last Super Bowl, when they had a similar ad with Betty White getting floored instead of Roseanne.

Battle of the soft drinks

Coke Vs Pepsi

WINNER: Coke.

This is a tough one to call. Pepsi’s ad is a bit clichéd, but gets the message across that Pepsi Max isn’t considered a junk food by abusive wives (dumb dads and nagging wives continue to be popular advertising characters). Meanwhile, the Coke ad proves that creating an ice trojan horse with a bottle of Coke inside, which is then ingested by your dragon foe does indeed make the dragon join your team and want to kill your enemy. It’s bizarre, but the computer animation is quite decent for an ad, and it’s clocking up the YouTube views from a very organised Coca Cola page, so it takes the prize this time.