Doritos scored a marketing touchdown during the Super Bowl with a humorous ad that featured a crystal ball, while the Monsters vs. Aliens 3-D movie preview came in a close second, according to Denver advertising executives.

The Doritos ad featured an office worker who gazed into a snow globe - calling it a crystal ball - and predicted that employees would receive free Doritos that day. Then he hurled the ball into a vending machine to shatter the glass. Doritos picked the consumer-generated ad, one of two it ran during the game, from nationwide consumer votes on the company's Web site.

"That was the one where everybody stopped, watched it, laughed," said Steve Miller, chief executive officer and founder of NetNewsdesk.com.

More than 50 New Denver Ad Club members gathered at Jackson's Sports Grill in LoDo on Sunday to watch the game - and, even more intensely, the ads - on a battalion of big-screen TVs. Each attendee could text message their vote as soon as the commercial ran.

As of the halftime break, the Doritos ad topped the list at 8.43 on a scale of 1 (waste of money) to 10 (outstanding). Other top ads included the Monsters vs. Aliens movie ad, Pedigree's adoption ad featuring frustrated owners of exotic pets, and Pepsi's ad that featured clips of folk singer Bob Dylan and hip hop artist will.i.am.

"It was an intriguing juxtaposition of images from each generation" that carried the message that Pepsi was the thread that connected them, said Shawne Ahlenins, an advertising and marketing professor at Johnson & Wales University.

The Super Bowl is the premier advertising event with a U.S. audience of 100 million viewers, many of whom watch closely during game breaks for the debut of entertaining, big-budget commercials. The ads have sold for between $2.4 million and $3 million per 30-second slot this year, for a record total of $206 million.

Other favorites include the Audi's ads featuring The Transporter film's star Jason Statham as he rushes from decade to decade trying to find a vehicle to avoid capture. Other cars fail to get the job done until he finds the Audi.

"It broke away from the rest of the ads - it was like a mini-motion picture," said Jenny Dahl, content supervisor at Crispin Porter Bogusky.

Several advertisers made nods to the state of the economy, including a Hyundai ad that promoted a new incentive program that lets buyers return the vehicle if they lose their jobs within a year of purchase. The Korean automaker's other ad in the Super Bowl, featuring angry executives from rival automakers shouting out Hyundai's name after learning that the company won a prestigious award, also was a hit with the New Ad Club.

"How many times did they say Hyundai in that 30-second ad?" said Matt Wagner, senior counselor at Carmichael Lynch Spong. "They made it look like their competition was validating them."