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Before and after Super Bowl XLIII, Paul Fahey shared his expertise with Capital News 9 on one of the most highly anticipated events of the Super Bowl... the commercials. With his experience as a TV commercial producer and strategic marketer, Paul brought a unique view to the who, why and how of $100,000 per second.

The Cardinals versus the Steelers can only mean one thing: the ads will probably be more entertaining than the game.

But is the $3 million price tag per 30-second spot worth it? Projections are for “over 100 million viewers” which is about 3 cents per impression compared to 4 cents for the 41 million people watching the Oscars. And as of Friday morning, there were two spots left unsold. Uh oh. But the details are in the demographics. And, frankly, that’s not what we’ll be talking about at the watercooler Monday morning. We’ll be talking about the winners and losers of the game. Here’s a few of my predictions:

• GM: Winner. Did GM do the right thing by pulling out of this year’s game? Absolutely. Even thought they left more room for Audi and Hyundai, they avoided a bigger PR mess over whether they should be asking Congress for handouts one week and spending $3mil on a single ad the next. 

• PETA: winner. What about the ads that got rejected? (watch it here) NBC said this one was too hot for viewers to handle. (I’ll wait while you go view it.) OK, welcome back. As I was saying, the free publicity they got was well worth the production cost. And our friends at YouTube are running it for...well, for free. I’m not sure if their ad was more risqué than last year’s Victoria Secret ad. I’m going to watch them both again. And maybe a third time.

• Monsters versus Aliens: Loser. A 3-minute 3D movie trailer (at $100,000/second), but I don’t think the tie-in with SoBe to distribute the 3D glasses will reach everyone. And why would you promote a cutting-edge 3D film using 50 year-old technology? So, let’s hope the content of the ad stands on its own. Star Trek is only buying one 30-second spot. Transformers, too. The space race has begun.

Oh, as for who’s going to win the actual game? Realistically, the Steelers by 6.  But you always, always root the underdog. The Cardinals and the Autobots. Game on.