Super Bowl Ad Metrics More Varied This Year

What may be a stinker in one study becomes a winner in another


Super Bowl ads are not only entertainment during the big game, they serve the higher (or lower) purpose of trying to sell you something. We may forget that these ads are doing that when we're busy laughing at the newest Doritos' advertisement or Volkswagen's Star Wars tributes.


We put out a list of our top five best Super Bowl ads and the comments make it abundantly clear - the average consumer has vastly different notions of what makes these ads good. Taking a look at the Super Bowl admeter on USA Today provides a good measure of what consumers thought were the best ads. This is important to advertisers as the average consumer is there number one target. This should helps them refine their ads for the next year's game.


Looking at the admeter, the top five ads all have a common theme - humor. People love to laugh. Ace Metrix seems to agree rating the top 10 most effective ads with the most effective being the ones based around humor.


acemetrix

The two ads that scored the highest tying for first place with a 671 Ace score was the M&M's "Just My Shell" ad and Doritos "Sling Baby" ad. Filling the rest of the top five are humor-based ads that appeal to consumer's base instinct to laugh.


The CEO of Ace Metrix, Peter Taboll, confirms this by saying to Forbes that humor was the most effective advertising strategy at this year's Super Bowl which is confirmed by so many ads trying to be funny.


Taboll says that animals go hand in hand with humor as Coca Cola's polar bear ads both ranked in the top 10. Doritos and Skechers both used dogs in their Super Bowl ads that catapulted both companies into the top 10 ads as well.


Not all ads are created equal though, and not all ads are intended effect to make people laugh. Serious ads that get the attention of viewers on something that they can relate to, such as the current financial landscape, can get people interested in products. Chrysler's "It's Halftime America" ad scored well at sixth place with an Ace score of 633. GE's "Building Something Big in Louisville" got tenth place with an Ace score of 600.


Taboll calls it the "Made in America" ad that connects especially well with men. These kind of ads really "connect with the American people" in a way that the humor-filled ads cant. He goes on to say that these ads can "deliver a serious, emotive message and connect with viewers during the Super Bowl."