Who really won the Super Bowl?

Sure, the Colts beat the Bears 29-17. But who won the
important game?

Yeah, a 92-yard run-back of the opening kickoff is exciting. Adam Vinatieri missing a field goal in a post-season game is a shocker. And Manning's 25 for

See this year's Super Bowl Ads at www.superbowl-ads.com/2007/index.html

38 and 247 yards is impressive even for a "6'5" quarterback with a laser rocket arm." But what about the commercials?

The game beat the commercials in the Nielsen ratings. Just barely.

Super Bowl XLI got a 32.8 Nielsen rating, just barely beating the commercials which scored a 32.1. So almost everybody stayed in the room to watch the 101 commercials that aired in the game. Here are Nielsen's top ten:

1.       Hewlett-Packard "Orange County Choppers"

2.       Toyota Tundra "See-Saw"

3.       FedEx "Not What It Seems"

4.       CSI "Show Promo"

5.       Nationwide "Kevin Federline"

6.       Bud Light "Hitchhiker"

7.       Bud Light "Gorillas"

8.       Revlon "Sheryl Crow"

9.       CareerBuilder.com "Office Jungle"

10.    Taco Bell "Lions"

Not so fast. Let's look at the instant replay.

According to TiVo (which doesn't release specific ratings), the commercials ranked higher than the game. Their top ten spots:

1.       Bud Light "Carlos Mencia."

2.       Bud Light "Rock, Paper, Scissors"

3.       FedEx: "Not What It Seems"

4.       Nationwide "Kevin Federline"

5.       Doritos "Crash"

6.       CareerBuilder.com "Office Jungle"

7.       Blockbuster: "Rabbit With Mouse"

8.       Doritos "Checkout Girl"

9.       Chevrolet "Old Songs"

10.    Schick "Quattro Science"
 

Nationwide won the buzz bowl with a big assist from the Restaurant Association.

The K-Fed spot (Shouldn't it be Fed-Ex now that Britney has moved on?) got more than 1,500 exposure on TV and in the press before the game. Plus massive postings and clicks. The spot probably wouldn't have gotten half as much attention if the Restaurant Association hadn't complained that it denigrated fast food workers who take pride and satisfaction in their bottom-of-the-food-chain McJobs. Pride and satisfaction? When fast-food employee turnover is 123%? Please. The Restaurant Association's whining built awareness for the spot way beyond anything Federline would have generated by himself. (How much buzz was there about Nationwide's similar "Fabio" spot?) Nationwide's spokesfolks stayed on the "Life comes at you fast" message in all interviews. So they got more than awareness, they got their message across. Nothing else got nearly as much buzz before the game – not even the contests for user-created commercials.

An amateur beat the pros in "most liked."

The spot that beat all the others in Frito-Lay's "Super Bowl Challenge" contest also beat every other Super Bowl spot in IAG Research's "most liked" rating. The Doritos spot with a car crash got an index of 159. With a production budget in the low two figures, that's the all-time Super Bowl production bargain. The "most liked" spots:

1.       Doritos "Crash"

2.       Blockbuster "Rabbit With Mouse"

3.       Coca-Cola "Video Game"

4.       Bud Light "Auctioneer Wedding"

5.       Coca-Cola "Old Guy's First Coke"

6.       Bud Light "Rock, Paper, Scissors"

7.       Doritos "Checkout Girl"

8.       Bud Light "Carlos Mencia"

9.       Snickers "Kissing Mechanics"

10.    Bud Light "Hitchhiker"

The pros strike back in the "most recalled" rankings.

Bud Light's "Hitchhiker" spot scored a 156 to top the "most recalled" ratings. This was the spot in which a couple in their car see a hitchhiker and the man wants to pick him up because he has a Bud Light but the woman is against it because the hitchhiker has an axe.

The top ten "most recalled" were:

1.       Bud Light "Hitchhiker"

2.       GoDaddy.com "Office Tour"

3.       Bud Light "Slap"

4.       Snickers "Kissing Mechanics"

5.       Bud Light "Rock, Paper, Scissors"

6.       Budweiser "Dog Gets Splashed"

7.       Doritos "Checkout Girl"

8.       Doritos "Crash"

9.       Budweiser "Crabs Steal Beer"

10.    Bud Light "Auctioneer Wedding"

Scoring in the search for synergy.

Reprise Media ranked the search effectiveness of Super Bowl advertisers to gauge how well they capitalized on the buzz their ads created.

The losers: GM and Doritos didn't leverage the interest their user-created ads generated with sponsored search. In GM's case, after the game organic (unpaid) search took surfers to the web site announcing the long-since-over contest. Oops.

The winners: Pizza Hut, Salesgenie.com and GoDaddy.com used the web effectively to augment the effectiveness of their Super Bowl ads. Pizza Hut had sponsored search driving webizens to a sponsored You Tube channel, and Salesgenie.com had a special on-line offer in their commercial to drive prospects to a special portal on their web site.

In all, 61% of Super Bowl advertisers used sponsored search with keywords relating to their brands, commercials, claims or slogans to encourage people to go from their TV spots to their websites.

The scoreboard inside viewers heads.

UCLA professor and professional researcher Joshua Freeman literally scans viewers heads to determine how many areas of their brains are stimulated by ads. Professor Freeman's theory is that a commercial is most effective when it registers in multiple regions of the brain. He also posits that the most successful spots engage viewers' attention throughout the entire commercial (seems logical).

The big winners in Professor Freeman's MRI: Coca-Cola "Video Game," Doritos "Checkout Girl" and Bud Light "Hitchhiker."

The losers: Emerald Nuts "Robert Goulet," Honda "CR-V Crave" and Sprint "Connectile Dysfunction."

Professor Freeman noted that this year a lot of spots stimulated the area of the brain associated with anxiety. He believes that is counterproductive, and says the Snickers "Kissing Mechanics" spot is this year's anxiety champ. "Getting a lot of anxiety is an excellent way to make a really indelible mark on the brain," he is quoted as saying in Advertising Age. "The more you evoke, in general, the stronger the memories are going to be. But if [the memory] is one of discomfort, it's just going to leave consumers with an uneasy feeling whenever they see a Snickers bar."

The score that matters most.

At BrainPosse we're fanatically committed to the principle that the number that matters most is the marketing communications ROI. And by that measure, GoDaddy.com is the big winner of Super Bowl XLI. Ad esthetes panned their commercial, but GoDaddy's revenues went up 55% versus the same period last year. (Since starting their Super Bowl campaign last year, GoDaddy has become the world's largest domain registrar, with an 18.8% market share.  Compare that to second place Network Solutions at 8.5%.)  We don't know how much of that additional revenue they carry to the bottom line, but since GoDaddy's product is domain registration, we'd suspect that most of the incremental increase is pure profit.

The other big bottom-line winner? The NFL. They got $2.85 billion for broadcast rights for the just-ended season. The Super Bowl is part of a bigger package with Fox and CBS, so the specific cost can't be pinpointed exactly. But the league and its owners have certainly run up an impressive score.

 comment I back to top I archive I home