Superbowl 2012: the 10 best ads (VIDEO)

As ever, the keenest competition around America's top sporting event is during the commercial breaks.

This year, social media tie-ins are big.

Here's Forbes' pick of the Top 10 Superbowl 2012 ads, most of which have already spilled onto YouTube ahead of today's big game.

It's topped by a Coca Cola clip. Cokes two animated bears' will be watching the game (and viewers in turn can watch them on a Coke website or via social media accounts), and the ad will change depending on which team is winning the game.

NBR struggles to see how any red-blooded American sports fan would follow two animated bears online rather than the action on the field. Nevertheless, with its online cross platform synergy, Coke's ad has quickly become the media darling.

NBR's favourite superbowl ad - not included in Forbes' Top 10 preview below - was a Cheverolet effort featuring the return of OK Go (twho created that viral running machine clip). The band set up over 1000 instruments over 3km of desert outside LA. A Chevy Sonic was outfitted with retractable pneumatic arms designed to play the instruments.

Honda's ad, which plays on a Matthew Broderick revisits Ferris Bueller's Day Off theme, invites viewers to download an associated app for BlackBerry (a smartphone platform that's as tired as Mr Broderick).

As of Monday morning NZ time, the Toyota clip - with its (cough) more traditional opening image - had garnered easily the most YouTube views (at least of the ads chosen for Forbes' top 10). Beyond the Budweiser lameness of that still, it rapidly descends into the surreal.

(Videos are in Flash format, so tablet users may have to take to a PC to view them.)