Every year the Super Bowl brings commercial excitement. This year spots are selling (30 seconds) for $4m. Lets take the opportunity to watch what happens at Super Bowl time, which brands can communicate effectively and what crises arise.

It’s early yet, but there are two stories to follow:

1 – Taco Bell (headquartered in Irvine) have already pulled their Anti-Vegetarian commercial due to pressure groups.

News story here.

A copy of the commercial here.

2 – VW have a solid history of winning ads at the Super Bowl – you’ll remember the Star Wars commercial from 2011 - here.

Here is what looks like the new hit for 2013.

What do you think?

What is your favorite past Super Bowl ad?

As far as the U.S. market is concerned, there's once a year when advertising and PR hold hands; or maybe more precisely advertising depends on media relations to make them successful (OK - so that has just pissed off a bunch of creatives, but hey, that's life). It's the Super Bowl.

Quickly approaching this coming weekend, the Super Bowl 2012 always promises to bring out TV adverts that entertain and delight. While we don't have time to go over some really cool PR stories about ads from the past, we do have time now to give you a sneak peak of what is coming up this weekend.

Some of the adverts are available (or their previews are) here.

There is inevitably the actual media relations about how much money a 30 second spot actually costs. Then the best ads create great PR around them. This year, look out for the companies which are using social media to get the anticipation glands going (Century 21 seem to have a strong strategy in place). Similarly look for hash tags that are quite prominent in the ads - not of the company/brand name, but around the campaign name/message.

Enjoy the ads and watch this space to see how PR will treat this year's ad-fest.