A good business practice is to try to get a good return for a major expenditure.

This likely didn't happen for most of the advertisers during Sunday night's Super Bowl game. Most of the ads - with a few exceptions - were disappointing. They were boring, confusing, and weak in content.Advertisers spent an incredible $3.8 million for a 30-second ad this year for the Super Bowl. Imagine all the Doritos and Cokes that have to be sold to pay for those ads!Coca Cola might have had its biggest disappointment ever with "the chase," a commercial in which a bus full of Las Vegas show girls, an Arab guy with some camels, a gang of cowboys, and the cast of The Road Warrior race in the desert toward a bottle of Coke.Viewers were asked to vote and decide the winner of the race. Does anyone really care who wins?Then there was the Go Daddy commercial in which the attractive Bar Refaeli kisses (really kisses) a geek. It was an embarrassing commercial. It was in poor taste. USA Today ranked it the poorest commercial on the Super Bowl.What's happening on Madison Avenue and the creativity that's supposed to be generated there? Where are the catchy phrases ("I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Thing" or "Where's the Beef?")Sketchers, who manufacturers sneakers, missed the boat completely in its add involving a cheetah and an antelope. The ad shows a man outrunning a cheetah, thanks to Sketchers, and befriending an antelope.Sketchers just settled a class action suit for $40 million because of making false claims about the magical abilities of its shoes to get people in shape just by putting them on. The ad Sunday actually implies such claims; plus it can't be taken seriously nor viewed as humorous.In all fairness, though, there were some commercials that were awesome. They're worth viewing on the Internet - on You Tube - if you missed them.Ranked number one by USA Today - and by many others who ranked the commercials - was a Budweiser ad involving a Clydesdale pony and a man who raised him; how they eventually become reunited.One individual wrote on a newspaper site, "I'm a full-grown man and I cried at this commercial."Then there was the Tide commercial in which a Joe Montana stain appears on a shirt. Of course, a mother washes the stain with Tide.Around 111 million people saw the game in 2012. Dividing this year's $3.8 million price by last year's audience, advertisers are paying about 3.4 cents for each viewer.By comparison, the highest-rated show in prime time these days is "NCIS." Even with 21.5 million viewers, CBS charges just $167,000 per 30 seconds of airtime, or roughly less than a penny per viewer.Frankly, for the most part, the commercials seen on NCIS weren't any worse than the premium commercials seen during the Super Bowl.Fortunately, the game itself was very exciting.By RON GOWERrgower@tnonline.com