(Continued from parts One, Two and Three)

As we can see from this year’s list, there are generally 2 kinds of advertisers during the Super Bowl. Most are nationally recognized consumer product companies like Anheuser-Busch and Fedex which want to expand their brand. The rest are up and comers like last years Godaddy.com that want to introduce themselves to the world with a big splash. I like the latter categories boldness and daring business sense, so Ill focus on those companies.

From that category this year, I am picking Garmin, Diamond Foods and IUSA as the ones to watch.

Garmin is a maker of GPS and navigation devices for consumers and business. The stock has done well lately, and I first noticed it in December when I constructed a portfolio of the top selling consumer electronic products on Amazon, and saw that 3 of their products were top 10 sellers. One could argue that a lot of that is baked into the stock, but I think navigation systems in cars and cell phones are on the verge of going mainstream, and Garmin is positioned very well to benefit. Their timing for this Super Bowl ad is also excellent.

Technically, Diamond Foods is no rookie to the Super Bowl marketing game, as it has run ads for its Emerald Nuts brand during the past 2 years. I like their quirky ads and the integration of their funky website. Ironically, the stock topped out around the Super Bowl last year, and is only now climbing back towards those levels.

After reading my generally bullish conclusions on companies that advertise in the Super Bowl, several readers have asked me about “advertising hubris.” They were referring to all those dot-coms during the bubble that spent million of dollars to run funny ads during the game, only to see their businesses implode in the following months. My response to them is that the expensive ads were not the cause of their collapse, but yet another symptom. Besides, Monster.com was one of the big advertisers during the 2000 Super Bowl, and although the stock hasn’t quite reached its bubble high, the company is still around, doing a ton of business and sporting a close to $7 Billion market cap. Along these lines, my third pick for stocks to watch after the game is infoUSA, which will be running ads for its relatively unknown salesgenie.com website. The stock is getting hit today on earnings, as it posted record numbers but guided down. That said, based on their forecast EBITDA is high enough for the stock to still trade at 5 times forward cash flows.

As for the nationally recognized brand companies that advertise in the game, I am keeping an eye on PEP. Not only is it sponsoring the halftime show, but its Frito-Lay division is going to air a fan-made commercial for Doritos that they got via a very creative competion. Very Web 2.0ish (something we are big fans of here at Stockpickr) and clever, in that the buzz on the ad campaign itself is going to get as much press as the commercial will produce.

Omid Malekan