Are Superbowl Ads Worth The Cost?

A 30-second commercial slot during this weekend's Super Bowl broadcast will cost $3.01 million (excluding production costs).  The USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter ranks the commercials for each year’s game by how much viewers liked the ads as they aired.  First place on the Meter for 2009 went to a Doritos commercial, a surprising upset over Anheuser-Busch that broke their 10-year winning streak.  

PepsiCo, Doritos’s parent company, spent millions on Super Bowl commercials for other products as well.  Despite the entertaining advertisements PepsiCo experienced a 1.5% decrease in overall sales between 3^rd quarter 2008 and 3rd quarter 2009 (Q4 has not yet been released).  To be fair the Super Bowl commercials weren't directly responsible for PepsiCo's disappointing year, but did they help in any way?  Did they increase brand awareness?  Did they attract customers that otherwise would not have been drawn to Pepsi or Doritos?  Probably not.  

At least PepsiCo can afford it...