It’s been a little over a month since “Who Dat” nation was vindicated on the world’s biggest stage. The Saints making it to the big show was something out of a Hollywood script. No wonder it was the most watched Super Bowl in history, nipping the M*A*S*H finale as the most watched show ever.

So who was the big winner in the Super Bowl of advertising? Was it Betty White playing tackle football? Tim Tebow and his Mom talking abortion? The dog zapping his owner with his dog caller? Jim Nantz punking a guy about his girlfriend removing his spine? The Griswalds stuck in a really small hotel room? Brett Favre accepting the MVP award in the year 2020? Or maybe the green police handing out tickets? Certainly all subjectively entertaining as the rankings for best and worst are not unanimous amongst the pundits.

So now a quiz. Can you name the brands associated with those entertaining spots? You know, the folks that paid between $2.5 to $2.8 million dollars for 30-seconds of your attention (not to mention the money they paid their agencies to create and produce the ad itself). How’d you do? If you are like most people we ask, probably not well – unless you were oversaturated with reruns of the same spot over the last 30 days.  That might aid in recall but not necessarily give you warm fuzzies about the brand itself. How funny is a joke once you’ve already heard it once, twice, ten times?

So what was the smartest Super Bowl ad of 2010? School of Humans believes it was Waste Management. Don’t remember their spot either? That’s because they didn’t have one. They had a show that aired right after the most watched TV show of all time. They were the featured brand in Undercover Boss. They had 22 minutes of brand as central character, brand as story.

So let’s do some math. Radically discount the cost of a Super Bowl :30 in half to say $1.3 million since it didn’t air DURING the big show. Now multiply that by the 22 minutes to get a media equivalency of $28.6 million for Waste Management. Not bad. We also wonder how audiences felt about Waste Management after watching the show. Do they recall what WM does? Their attention to detail, efficiency and environmental responsibility? You be the judge.

Don’t get us wrong. School of Humans loves Super Bowl ads. They’re entertaining as hell and that’s what it’s all about. Who doesn’t like a beaver in a hot tub with a hot model…we’re only human.