January 19, 2013
Watch the Top Five Super Bowl Commercials from the past fifteen years (yes, Feb. 3 marks the 16th anniversary of our coverage of your favorite Super Bowl Commercials – SuperBowl-ads.com)
June 13, 2012
Go Daddy Evolving Brand with New Olympics TV Ad Campaign: “Inside / Out”
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (June 13, 2012) – Go Daddy commercials: love them, or not … the edgy, slightly inappropriate TV commercials have helped make the Web hosting provider and domain name registrar a world-leader on the Internet and a household name with mainstream audiences. Now, Go Daddy is announcing plans to evolve the iconic brand with a new marketing effort set to debut during the Olympics NBC broadcast. The campaign is titled “Inside / Out” and was created by the New York office of Deutsch Inc.
Considering Go Daddy’s well-documented marketing success over the years, signing an outside agency is somewhat of a risk. While critics historically panned the TV ads, Go Daddy leveraged the buzz, using “Push to Web” advertising to attract website visitors and convert them into customers.
Go Daddy’s Super Bowl campaigns have been produced in-house for the last seven consecutive years and are credited with helping grow new domain name market share to more than 50 percent worldwide.
“We are teaming up with Deutsch because we think the team there ‘gets us’ and can help take Go Daddy to the next level,” said Go Daddy Chief Marketing Officer Barb Rechterman. “They understand our story and we think working with Deutsch is going to be an important step in Go Daddy’s brand evolution.”
The plan is for the new ads to be true to Go Daddy’s sense of fun, but engage viewers more deeply around what exactly Go Daddy does to help millions of people and businesses grow their presence online.
“We see this as a tremendous opportunity to take Go Daddy, one of the most recognizable Super Bowl advertiser brands, or Internet brands for that matter, and make it relevant for what it does,” said Val DiFebo, Deutsch NY CEO. “Go Daddy has a phenomenal growth story and delivers a brand of service unlike any of its competitors. Our challenge is to tell that story in a way that it still fun and edgy, but showcases more of Go Daddy’s specific offerings.”
Deutsch Inc. Chairman Donny Deutsch has watched the Go Daddy advertising story unfold over the years, having reported about it on CNBC’s “The Big Idea” and critiqued many of Go Daddy’s Super Bowl commercials. “Deutsch is the right agency for Go Daddy at this point in their growth. Look for Go Daddy to be on their typical big stage, with a smart business-focused step change,” noted Deutsch.
Go Daddy’s CMO has been leading the company’s day-to-day marketing strategies and operations since before Go Daddy was registering domain names. “Now is the time for a new era of Go Daddy advertising,” Rechterman said. “One of our strengths has always been a willingness to take risks, especially with our marketing. The new Olympics campaign pays homage to the past success, but spotlights Go Daddy’s technical strength and entrepreneurial spirit.”
Go Daddy serves more than 10.3 million customers worldwide and ranks as the world leader for Web hosting, domain name registrations and new SSL Certificates.
“People know who we are, our Super Bowl marketing has helped make Go Daddy a household name,” said Go Daddy CEO Warren Adelman, who has been with the company for nearly ten years and took over leadership in December. “Our customers think of us as their business partner because of our products, infrastructure and service. What we want to do now is market in ways that tell people more about what we do to help businesses grow online.”
To find out more about building your online presence easily and affordably, visit www.GoDaddy.com.
February 19, 2012
While America’s feelings were divided on the outcome of the game, there’s one aspect of Super Bowl Sunday that crosses team loyalties and brings us together — the commercials. This year’s commercials had something for everyone, from cute dogs to talking babies to Adriana Lima. After a week of intense competition in the YouTube Ad Blitz contest, the votes are in and you voted M&M’S “Just My Shell” commercial as your favorite ad of the Super Bowl!
Rounding out the top five commercials of the big game are spots from Chrysler Group, Bud Light, Chevy Silverado and Doritos:
2. Chrysler Group “Halftime in America”
3. Bud Light “Rescue Dog”
4. Chevy Silverado “2012”
5. Doritos “Man’s Best Friend”
Give me the stats!
In its fifth year running, YouTube Ad Blitz has already surpassed previous years with 133M views from fans worldwide, up 43 percent from last year (as of Sunday, 2/12)…and still counting! In fact, during game time roughly 6 percent of all U.S. YouTube traffic came from people watching Super Bowl commercials on Ad Blitz.
The days that saw the highest volume of views were Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, making up 82 percent of total views received over the week. And it wasn’t just fans in the states seeking out the commercials — nearly 18 percent of all views came from outside of the U.S. Other interesting stats include:
Tune into the YouTube homepage today to check out the top five spots!
February 17, 2012
The Super Bowl may be the one time of year viewers are as eager to watch the commercials as they are the show… well, at least the halftime show. As always, we marketers tuned in to weigh in on how this year’s pack of advertisers managed the most expensive real estate on television. During the 2012 Super Bowl, advertisers delighted with many of its usual ploys (celebrities, endorsements and sex appeal), as with H&M’s provocative ad featuring David Beckham. There were also rave-winning new concepts, such as the Honda’s rendition of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off“. But while campaigns may win applause for recruiting the biggest celebrities or most daring scripts, which brands merely flashed their cash, and which truly engaged customers?
The winners, we found, reflected a thorough understanding of multi-channel marketing, and elongated the customer experience by tying their TV campaigns to other channels. This fully leveraged their massive investments not just by pairing the ads with lower-cost vehicles, but by allowing customers to actively experience the brand rather than just viewing it. You may have noticed that the most engaging ads weren’t the most “salesy”; these brands were more focused on crafting a residual customer experience than making an immediate sale. The following champs not only made the list of viewer favorites, they got viewers talking, tweeting, Facebooking, and otherwise immersed with the brands:
1. Bud Light – What better way to manage your corporate social responsibility strategy than to make a cute little rescued dog the face of your brand? Bud Light won high marks with multiple creative commercials during the 2012 Super Bowl, but the clear winner features Weego, a rescued mutt that clearly knows how to party. Dedicated to ensuring each of his guests is welcomed with a cold beer, Weego’s star power entertains while hitting a soft spot in viewers’ hearts. At the end of the commercial, Weego has undoubtedly won over most of America, the commercial reads, “Help Rescue Dogs”, along with a link to Bud Light’s Facebook page. Creating a seamless experience, Bud Light’s default Facebook image now showcases a classic Bud Light bottle, with Weego’s personalized dog collar looped around its neck. Visitors can find more video and images of Weego, as well as a custom app for a charitable campaign where Bud Light will donate $1 to the Animal Rescue Foundation for every “Like” Weego gets.
All in all, this Super Bowl campaign forms a model customer engagement experience: it captures and entertains viewers with a lovable and memorable icon (Weego, of course). It invites viewers to an extended engagement opportunity by connecting to a perfectly synchronized Facebook page. And while still scoring something for itself by requiring users to “Like” the main brand page page in order to “Like” Weego, Bud Light gives something back to the users, too-something they can feel good about (After all, they just earned needy animals a donation just by clicking on a button). And this doesn’t even take social virality into account-a Facebook user’s actions will show up in their friends’ feeds, too. Bud Light now has the opportunity to create a long-term if not lifelong customer experience with the thousands of Facebook subscribers it gained within mere hours of the Super Bowl.
2. Pepsi Max – Soft beverage giant Pepsico pushed its brand hard during the 2012 Super bowl, and while its Pepsi ad featuring such icons as Elton John and X-Factor’s Melanie Amaro generated plenty of buzz, it was the Pepsi Max commercial that really won high points with viewers and critics alike. The commercial draws a few chuckles as it depicts a disloyal Coke employee stealthily purchasing a Pepsi Max, as Patsy Cline’s “Your Cheatin’ Heart” plays in the background. Just when he thinks he’s in the clear, the register goes wild and none other but Regis Philbin appears to hand over a larger-than-life check, awarding the woeful shopper with Pepsi Max for life. But beyond the originality, humor, and effective use of a celebrity persona, Pepsi Max scores big in customer engagement by ending the commercial with a link to its Facebook page. Here, Pepsi Max is featuring a “Win Pepsi Max for Life” campaign of their own, allowing visitors to submit video entries to win. Original, consistent, and engaging– we like it.
3. Godaddy is no newcomer to integrating marketing channels to shape a unique customer experience. Its long-held television-to-web strategy has featured plenty of star power and provoking ads, always ending with, “See more at GoDaddy.com”. But this year, Godaddy went a step further, becoming the first to air a Super Bowl ad containing a QR code. And, according to a press release published by the company, the questionable move reaped huge awards, driving record traffic to Godaddy’s mobile site. “We decided it was worth the risk to play to all the people watching the game and using their smartphones simultaneously,” said Go Daddy Executive Chairman and Founder Bob Parsons. “I’m thrilled we made the decision. Viewers scanned the code and as a result, Go Daddy set an all-time sales record for our mobile site.”
Read More at : B2C
February 17, 2012
If you thought this year’s Super Bowl ads were expensive at $3.5 million for a 30-second pop, wait until next year.
CBS chief Les Moonves told investors in a conference call that his sales team will set an all-time unit cost record in 2013 – “a potential $4 million per spot”. Super Bowl XLVII, will be played in New Orleans on Feb. 3, 2013 and CBS will be the broadcaster.
NBC were pleased with themselves getting $3.5 million for 30 seconds time in this year’s game – a 17 percent increase over Fox’s $3 million in 2010.
Adweek says, “While there’s nothing binding about a forward-looking statement, Moonves’ remark almost certainly will establish a target rate for CBS president of network ad sales JoAnn Ross.”
Fox is actually leading CBS in the important adults 18-49 demo, says Adweek, averaging a 3.3 rating to CBS’s 3.2 But CBS is winning the battle for total viewers, averaging 12.2 million through the first 21 weeks of the season. Fox is second with 9.02 million.
Read More at : The Drum
February 15, 2012
The dust has settled on the Super Bowl and we’ve stopped looking back at the ads and game. It’s time to look forward at what this year’s Super Bowl meant for digital video. The answer: a lot.
According to NBC, 2.1 million people streamed the Super Bowl for a total of 78.6 million minutes. That’s a little more than 37 minutes per person. Pretty amazing — considering the experience was HORRIBLE.
There are seminal events in media and technology. Some because we’ve taken a great leap in quality. Some because we’ve taken a great leap in adoption.
This was one of those adoption moments. Mind you, I’m not trying to be Debbie Downer. I’m actually excited for what next year holds. Look at what we’ve seen in the last two months:
- Massive adoption of connected television at CES by manufacturers
- The first Super Bowl streamed live, with millions tuning in
- The end of the game resulted in 12,233 tweets per second, compared to 4,064 the year before
All bodes well for digital video and the connected experience. In fact, some colleagues were kind enough to speak with me at CES this year about connected devices. I’d like to pay it forward, by offering some of their thoughts as free advice to the NFL and CBS, who has the rights to broadcast next year’s Super Bowl.
“If I’m reaching a consumer 10 times on their tablet and 20 times on the PC and five times on their smartphone, I’ve wasted some of my media impressions when I only wanted to reach them in aggregate five times. So technology is enabling us to look at the consumer experience and from a brand perspective, better measure and deliver the messages that are gonna resonate with those consumers across devices.”
– Cat Spurway, SVP Strategy & Marketing at Pointroll
I can’t begin to tell you how many of the same ads I saw on the live stream. Rather than holding advertisers hostage for the most money possible, CBS should open up restrictions to ensure consumers have a fabulous experience online by seeing a good variety of ads.
“The opportunity to test, to try to experiment and to be happy with failure, literally to applaud it because you’ve tried it, is something that I think is a secret weapon the very best companies have.”
– Brad Ball, former CMO McDonald’s & former CMO NASCAR
NBC’s live stream did nothing inventive. The closest it came was a live stream of Jimmy Fallon’s tweets during the game. I guess you could make the argument that the live stream itself was a risk, but NBC did nothing interesting to make the experience truly spectacular.
“And the power of it is the connection. A lot of times those devices are planned and bought totally separate, but when connecting them, you amplify their possibilities.”
– Darren Herman, Chief Digital Media Officer at The Media Kitchen
The best streamed experience of the Super Bowl: the stream of tweets throughout the game. CBS needs to capture the power of what people are ALREADY doing, harness it, and don’t try to corral the user.
“I think a red flag therefore would be when people start to sit back and say, ‘Hey, it’s 8% of our budget. It’s 9% of our budget. It’s part of kind of an innovation bucket.’ I think the world has sufficiently changed such that [digital tactics] can no longer be thought of as, you know, the P.S. to an advertising budget.”
– Chris Curtain, VP Digital Strategy, Global Marketing at Hewlett-Packard
NBC did nothing to make the online experience indispensable. It was a throwaway: no must-have content, no unforgettable moments. In fact, since the stream was fully minutes behind the live broadcast, it actually made the stream irrelevant as a second screen.
“So you need to be asking a question of yourself, will the dog eat the dog food? Will there be enough people that will want to go to that device for you to be able to build it? You could have made some big mistakes years ago by building an entire platform on Second Life where people went, where they didn’t have a real life. You could have wasted a lot of time in that endeavor.”
– Jeffrey Hayzlett, former CMO Kodak & best-selling author
Streaming of live sports is no Second Life. It’s real and for the masses. Next year we can start treating it as such.
Oh, and CBS, you can thank me and my friends for the free advice by thrilling us next year.
Read More at : MediaPost
February 13, 2012
Old wisdom: releasing your Super Bowl ad early on the web builds excitement and buzz for your spot and gives it a huge boost online. New wisdom: still true, but it’s not necessarily a requirement.
In a special edition of the Viral Chart this week, we’re looking at cumulative online views for Super Bowl campaigns as of early yesterday. As expected, ads released before the game, such as Volkswagen’s “The Dog Strikes Back” and Honda’s “Matthew’s Day Off” are doing well, as are a host of other spots released early from Audi, Kia and Toyota.
But what’s striking is ads that weren’t released before the game are also climbing up the chart, even though the competition had a head start. Chrysler’s controversial “It’s Halftime in America” gained this week, even though the spot wasn’t available before the game, and it was briefly pulled down from YouTube over a mistaken copyright claim.
M&M’s “Just My Shell” also did well, even thought the spot didn’t go live online until the game (though there was a lightly viewed teaser). Samsung’s ad was also new, but it was part of a bigger campaign targeting Apple that at this point many viewers recognize. The Doritos ads were already online, but no one knew the winner until the game.
Conclusion? Well, check back in in the coming weeks as we watch how these campaigns play out. Last year, VW worked the pre-release strategy to perfection with “The Force.” This year, many emulated that approach. Long term, its the quality of the content (and the budget put behind distribution), not a few weeks head start, that determines who rises to the top.
Read More at: Adage’s The Viral Video Chart
February 13, 2012
The Doritos brand announced that its consumer-created Doritos commercial “Man’s Best Friend,” which aired for the first time nationally during yesterday’s Super Bowl XLVI broadcast, ranked No. 1 in USA TODAY’s annual Super Bowl Ad Meter. Doritos, one of the flagship brands from PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay division, is now awarding the ad’s creator, Jonathan Friedman with a $1 million cash bonus prize.
The win for “Man’s Best Friend” marks the third time in Super Bowl advertising history that a consumer-created Doritos commercial has topped the USA TODAY Ad Meter rankings. In addition to “Man’s Best Friend,” “Sling Baby” also received airtime during Sunday night’s game. Created by Kevin T. Willson, “Sling Baby” scored No. 4 on the Ad Meter.
The two consumer-created Doritos ads that aired Sunday were among five finalists selected by the Doritos brand from more than 6,100 total submissions. Consumer votes determined one of the winners, while the Doritos brand selected the other. As part of this year’s contest, both Friedman and Willson also were awarded one of the most exciting grand prizes to date: a guaranteed opportunity to work on a future Doritos project with one of the hottest entertainment teams in the industry today — the award-winning trio of Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone that make up The Lonely Island.
“We are thrilled for both of our winners and excited to award our third million-dollar bonus prize in four years,” said Tony Matta, vice president of marketing, Frito-Lay North America. “We know their success tonight is just the beginning for both of their careers.”
Friedman, a freelance graphic designer and musician, spent just $20 to buy dog treats, a cat collar and a bag of Doritos tortilla chips to film “Man’s Best Friend.” He borrowed a friend’s dog, Huff, and labored through multiple takes as the 120-pound Great Dane resisted in his new acting gig. Finally, after bribing Huff with treat after treat, Friedman got the shots he wanted to create his ad, which stars a dog that bribes a man with Doritos tortilla chips to cover up what he’s done with the neighbor’s cat.
A former special education teacher, Willson left his steady job in 2005 to pursue his lifelong dream of comedy film production. With the airing of “Sling Baby” during Super Bowl XLVI, he is now that much closer to fulfilling his dream. The spot tells an underdog story of a grandma and baby who team up to take down the bully on the jungle gym and re-claim a bag of Doritos tortilla chips.
This year marked the sixth anniversary of Crash the Super Bowl and proved to be the most popular yet, attracting a record-setting number of fan submissions and generating an unprecedented level of consumer votes. Since the contest began in 2007, consumer-created Doritos ads have consistently ranked within the top-five spots of the traditional USA TODAY Ad Meter, and three of the last four years they have scored the No. 1 ranking.
As part of this year’s competition, all five finalists received $25,000 and a trip to attend Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis. Bonus cash prizes were based on how each winning ad ranked in the traditional USA TODAY Ad Meter, and on future rankings on the soon-to-be decided USA TODAY Facebook Super Bowl Ad Meter. The payouts for both meters are as follows:
Each winning consumer finalist is only eligible to receive one cash bonus prize and the amount will be determined by the Ad Meter in which the commercial receives the highest spot. The final cash bonus prizes will be determined once the results of the USA TODAY Facebook Super Bowl Ad Meter are announced on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2012.
February 13, 2012
Playing dirty might be de rigeur in politics, but it seldom helps in selling products—even dusty pickups ravaged by the apocalypse.
That might end up being GM’s tough lesson from its Super Bowl XLVI ad which, to some, spoke less about the strengths of GM products than it did attack Ford’s reputation for durability and longevity.
Based on traffic and visitor data collected by the shopping and pricing site Kelley Blue Book, more visitors browsed Ford after the GM commercial—a lot more—even though Ford didn’t have a big Super Bowl ad. Whether looking at the controversy in the days surrounding, or specifically at the window of time during and after the ad aired, Ford appeared to benefit most, if an immediate browsing or shopping of new vehicles was the goal.
KBB.com data shows consumer interest in the Silverado lifting during the commercial airing, leveling off after the commercial and declining after the game, as interest in the F-150 surged, curiously. Despite the Silverado’s lift during the game, Ford’s F-150 still drew a greater share of week-over-week attention from KBB.com consumers.
In comparing consumer interest on kbb.com among the Full-size truck segment, KBB analyst Akshay Anand noted that the share of visits to the F150 surged over 26-percent week-over-week, while the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 saw a 25-percent drop in traffic during the same period.
“Looking at the data for that whole day, Ford did see some lift, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence,” said Anand.
That leads to how some might have heard the commercial…something along the lines of this: What kind of truck do you drive to the impending apocalypse? If it’s a Ford, oh you sorry sap, you’re just not going to make it.
Advertising 101: Don’t make the competing product your punchline
And that hits hard at one very important factor: brand loyalty. To many, the commercial was less a declaration of the strengths of GM products than it was the buildup to an attack on Ford’s trucks. And it may have sent Ford loyalists to their laptops and tablets to search for reassurance about Ford’s reputation, as their GM counterparts gloated and stayed on the sofa.
“Truck owners tend to be more loyal than those in any other segment,” said Anand, and when a product with that level of loyalty is mentioned negatively in an ad, argued Anand, the response is likely to be one that’s on the defensive.
Other potential explanations: Ford was mentioned bluntly and clearly right near the end of the ad, so is that somehow the name that stuck with viewers? Or does the lesson to be learned really have more to do with etiquette?
It is, after all, one of the first commercials in some time to blatantly call out a competing product without mention of a number or metric as basis.
February 13, 2012
February 9, 2012
Read More at : Detroit Free Press
Chrysler Chief Marketing Officer Olivier François insisted that the “Halftime in America” Super Bowl ad was designed to send any kind of political message or as a statement of support for President Barack Obama’s re-election.
“There were absolutely no political intentions,” François said in Chicago Wednesday. “The politicians can see political messages wherever they want, but we are not politicians.”
Those were François’ first public comments about the ad since Sunday.
In the two-minute commercial, Eastwood talks about the challenges still facing America as both the country and Chrysler work to fully recover from the recession of 2008 and 2009.
“It’s all about uniting,” François said. “There is nothing more neutral and nothing more universal.”
In a separate issue, he said he and fellow Chrysler executives don’t know why the company’s Super Bowl commercial was taken down for hours from Chrysler’s YouTube channel, but he’s trying to solve the mystery.
“We are investigating,” François said. “It’s a strange thing.”
From late Sunday night until about noon Monday, the commercial could not be viewed on Chrysler’s YouTube channel. At the time, a message appeared on the video that said the commercial was removed because of a copyright issue with NFL Properties.
The NFL has said it did not file a copyright claim, and YouTube has declined to say who did.
François and Saad Chehab, head of the Chrysler and Lancia brands, say they are somewhat mystified by the politically charged debate about the commercial.
“If being proud of America is political thing, then so be it,” Chehab said.
February 9, 2012
Forget what all those ad executives tweeting on #brandbowl and #whartonfoa told you last night: There were 87 commercials during last night’s Super Bowl, but very few of them failed to meaningfully connect their message to their social media platforms.
The ad execs praised the use of Twitter hashtags, even going as far as saying the hashtag was to 2012 what the URL was to 2000, one year after Victoria’s Secret became the first ever firm to use a Super Bowl ad to connect viewers to its online media. But posting a hashtag in a commercial and getting viewers to take some sort of action that increases brand affinity are two different things, according to an anlysis released Monday by Resource Interactive.
Coca-Cola, for example, aggressively encouraged people to watch the game withs its fame polar bears on Facebook and Twitter in the days and weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. But come game time, none of the soft drink makers three television spots included a URL or mention of the social media end of the campaign.
“Consumers don’t think in channels (traditional, digital, mobile, social). Coca-Cola failed to make its multi-channel experience simple and seamless,” said Lora Schaeffer, Resource Interactive director of social media.
Altimeter was surprised that many brands didn’t include some call to action in their commercials. According to the firm’s day-after analysis, 32% had no references to Websites or social media sites, And only Best Buy had an “Act Now” promotion, offering people who visited its Web site $50 off a mobile phone purchased in 2012.
“Viewers visiting the BestBuy.com site were immediately presented with the opportunity to sign up for the offer and the brand created a sense of urgency by limiting the offer only to those who sign up by Feb. 12,” said Jessica Ried, Resource Interactive director of commerce strategy. “Acknowledging that not everyone is eligible to buy a new phone at this very moment, the offer includes an opt-in notification for new phone eligibility which was a smart move by Best Buy. Many brands with shorter purchase cycles failed to provide any meaningful reason to act.”
Other big winners in terms of connecting a television commercial to an online presence were car makers Chevy and Chrysler, although the two firms took decidedly different approaches. Chevy heavily promoted an app before and during the game, and added a contest that included 20 brand new Chevys as prizes to entice viewers to download a mobile app.
“Chevy kept their brand relevant and quite literally at the fingertips of consumers throughout game,” Schaeffer said.
Online observers may have missed Chrysler’s connection to social media, as its somber, Halftime In America advertisement featuring Clint Eastwood had no social or online branding. But after the game, Chrysler was able to continue the conversation about the campaign on Twitter on #halftimeinamerica, according to Resource Interactive.
“Without tricks or hooks, the brand built upon the energy of last year’s spot, and quickly leveraged Twitter to continue the heat-felt campaign,” Resource Interactive said
Read More at: ReadWriteWeb
February 9, 2012
After what can only be described as a puritanical Super Bowl in 2011, this year’s ads certainly returned “sexy” to the Super Bowl. Thirteen percent of the Super Bowl ads were “sexy” this year, up from 2% in Super Bowl 2011. That said, early consumer reaction demonstrates that sex isn’t really selling like it’s supposed to. Case in point: H&M’s David Beckham spot was among the lowest scoring ads of the entire game, with an Ace Score (for ad effectiveness) of 450 (on a scale of 950). Becks scored best with females 50+, but struggled everywhere else, including across most income, age and gender breaks.
A quick note on how we do this: This time of year, everyone seems to be a self-proclaimed expert in ranking the Super Bowl ads. Usually the rankings are either an uncontrolled poll of some type, where the most fervent fans vote multiple times for their favorite, American Idol-style. Other rankings are based on the feedback of a small sample of creative types or editors who decide for the rest of us which are the best and which are the worst. We have always felt both approaches are wrong. Our Super Bowl ad scores and rankings are always based on a geo-demographically balanced sample of at least 500 viewers per ad or some 25,000 responses for the set — the same way we test every single national ad throughout the year. And our scores are not just based on how likeable the ad is. Of course, the best ads are always highly likeable, but it’s more than this that makes the ad effective: A consumer remembering the brand, an ad that moves them, a relevant ad, an ad that provides information and ultimately creates desire for a product, an ad that results in a change of behavior—these are all criteria that go into a good ad. It is much more than a thumbs up.
So, what worked in this year’s Super Bowl?
Humor. As our friends at Groupon showed us last year, humor can go terribly wrong. That said, it can also be the star. Just ask Doritos, whose “Sling Baby” spot tied with M&M’s “Just My Shell” as the top ads of the Super Bowl, both scoring a lofty 671 Ace Score. Both were just plain funny.
Also, among the top 10 ads was “Matthew’s Day Off” from Honda, featuring Matthew Broderick in a grown-up version of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” The ad was a crowd pleaser, achieving an Ace Score of 630.
Bears and dogs. Two of Coca-Cola’s Polar Bear ads ranked within the top 10 ads, achieving Ace Scores of 654 and 640, respectively, trumping Pepsi’s celebrity-laden spots: “King’s Court,” featuring Elton John and The X Factor winner Melanie Amaro (as well as Flavor Flav). “King’s Court” achieved an Ace Score of 628, and PepsiMAX’s “Check-Out” ad featuring Regis Philbin scored a 592 Ace Score.
In this mix was Doritos’ “Man’s Best Friend” ad, scoring a 645. Doritos knows how well dogs work in their ads, having aired the most effective Super Bowl ad in 2011, with its “Pug Attack” ad, which scored a 662.
Skechers’ replacement of Kim Kardashian this year with Mr. Quiggly the dog was a brilliant move. Their mix of canine cuteness with humor paid off, as the ad scored 629, a 24% increase over last year’s Kardashian bomb.
Made in America. A celebrity ad that definitely worked was Clint Eastwood’s stirring spot for Chrysler, the No. 1 automotive spot, which promoted the city of Detroit. Scoring high on “relevance” and really connecting with the American people, it scored a 633 Ace Score, which was about 20% stronger with men than last year’s spot featuring Eminem. In addition, GE’s spot featuring its work in Louisville, Kentucky, was a top-scoring Super Bowl ad, achieving an Ace Score of 600. Both ads proved that you can deliver a serious, emotive message AND connect with viewers during the Super Bowl.
The storytelling ad. Thirty percent of this year’s Super Bowl ads were longer than the average 30-second spot, the type of ad we refer to as a “storytelling ad.” This is way up from 6% last year. Why? Because they work, as we saw with the top four automotive ads, including the aforementioned Clint Eastwood Chrysler ad, which was two minutes long, as well as the Matthew Broderick Honda CRV ad (60 seconds, Ace Score: 630), the Jerry Seinfeld/ Jay Leno Acura ad (60 seconds, Ace Score 593), and the Volkswagen “Dog Strikes Back” ad (60 seconds, Ace Score: 590). The cola companies also employed storytelling in this year’s Super Bowl: Each of Coca-Cola’s three top ads were 60 seconds, as was Pepsi’s “King’s Court” ad. GE also went with the 60-second ad in its top-ranked “Building Something Big in Louisville” spot.
What about celebrities? This year, 19 Super Bowl ads starred someone famous, but not unlike the last Super Bowl, three of the 10 least effective ads starred celebrities, including David Beckham’s H&M ad, Century 21’s ad starring Donald Trump and Deion Sanders, and the GoDaddy ad starring Jillian Michaels and spokeswoman Danica Patrick. That said, it seemed that advertisers followed the advice of some of our learnings from last year and used celebrities more effectively this year, as we saw in the Chrysler Clint Eastwood ad, the Honda Matthew Broderick spot, and the Skechers’ Mr. Quiggly spot that featured a cameo of Mark Cuban. And (even though it was beaten by Coke’s polar bears,) the Pepsi Elton John spot performed extremely well. Best Buy’s shift to “tech” celebrities also performed well, delivering a solid 568.
And, who got it wrong? The Toyota brand struggled this Super Bowl and produced two ads that will likely land in the Bottom 10, including Lexus’ “the Beast” ad, which scored low on likeability and relevance with a total Ace Score of 489, and Camry’s “Connections” ad, which was shown during half-time and scored an Ace Score of 502. The launch of Bud Light Platinum went terribly wrong, scoring a lowly 476, trumped only by the disastrous “Work” ad aired by Bud Light, both ads begging the question, “How did the King of Beers get it so wrong?”
Then there is the collection of ads that are just plain confusing or odd, including the GE Turbine ad that had some strange link to Budweiser beer, scoring a 527. I also wasn’t sure how Tax-Act’s little boy peeing in the pool related to free tax software, and neither did consumers, who gave the ad a 498 Ace Score. Cars.com’s “Confident You” ad was “just plain weird,” said one consumer, and its Ace Score of 490 reflected this. This, along with Hulu’s “Hulubratory” (scoring a paltry 438), were examples of “humor gone wrong.”
Read More at : Forbes
February 9, 2012
