What makes the Super Bowl so super?

I moved from Britain to the US 10 years ago. With the move came lots of new culture and also a new lexicon, as chips became fries, the tube became the subway and football became, well, football (no Brit would ever say soccer). But once a year, at Super Bowl time, I get to say football in the American meaning of the term!

Last weekend the Denver Broncos faced off against the Seattle Seahawks in front of a television audience that in recent years has averaged over 110 million viewers at any point during the game and totals an audience of more than 160 million Americans. It’s a cultural phenomenon that many viewers only tune in to watch the commercials. What makes these ads worth watching? And why is the Super Bowl the one day a year it’s okay to say 'I watch for the ads?'

Super Bowl stage
It’s no secret that, with Super Bowl being such a large stage, advertisers spend lots of money to be heard. For example, at Super Bowl XLVII in 2013 the cost of an average 30-second spot was around $4 million. What is surprising, though, is the extent to which many advertisers rise to the occasion and make Super Bowl ads that are vastly more effective than commercials that run the other 364 days of the year.

BrainJuicer recently compiled the FeelMore50™, an industry analysis for which we utilized our ComMotion® approach to rank 200 pieces of US communication based on their effectiveness. All ads were selected for having won awards or public recognition, or becoming viral sensations during the course of 2013. The number one spot? Budweiser’s Clydesdales Brotherhood, which originally aired during the 2013 Super Bowl. In fact 11 of the top 50 and 3 of the top 5 ads on the FeelMore50™ originally aired during the 2013 Super Bowl.

Brotherhood is better than an ad; it’s a story told with very little narration in just two minutes, and it succeeds by making us feel. First happy then sad and then pure joy as it takes the viewer on a journey. Compare this to the ads that dominate in the US on non-Super Bowl days, ads that are built around brand recall and hammering home the key message – at times simply to ensure the creative progresses through traditional, outdated and, frankly, wrong copy-testing methodologies. These ads seek to persuade while Clydesdales seduces the viewer.

Blockbuster 5-stars
We test a lot of ads from all categories at all times of year and each is ranked on BrainJuicer’s star chart, an easy to understand 1-5 rating. The average of all ads tested is around 2-stars, with very few achieving the blockbuster 5-stars that Brotherhood does. Why do ads simply not match up to Super Bowl winners year-round? We have a few theories:

1. The Super Bowl is a 'special event deserving of special commercials' making advertisers more comfortable with doing something different. More people watch the Super Bowl than any other piece of programming, and it is certainly unique in more ways than one. But that doesn’t mean ads have to be sub-par around the year. Brand-building advertising is more efficient than activation advertising, and so marketers should be encouraged to embrace emotion at all times.

2. There is a certain amount of freedom advertisers allow their agencies and brand teams during the Super Bowl. Last year PepsiCo’s Doritos brand crowd-sourced its ads, asking the general public to generate the advertising ideas. Participating consumers, liberated from the classical and outdated model of advertising persuasion, came up with extremely compelling communications, two of which found their way into FeelMore50™.

3. Brands aren’t afraid to get 'creative'. VW recently put out a great teaser (yes, a teaser) for its Super Bowl ad, where it pokes fun at all the tried and true Super Bowl tips for engagement (babies, puppies, women in bikinis etc.). It’s an ad for an ad, which is unconventional itself, but even more amazing is that it doesn’t extol the virtues of the product, and I think it’s safe to assume Volkswagen’s Super Bowl spot won’t either. VW has done this before with stated success. Remember The Force ad?

Year round highlights
We’re planning on a subsequent FeelMore50™ due for release in January 2015 where we’ll look back at the great ads of 2014. If I had a New Year’s wish it would be that I hope next year’s FeelMore50™ won’t see so many Super Bowl ads. I hope we’ll be able to highlight the great ads from April, from August and from October, great ads that carry the emotional weight of Super Bowl ads, but are brave enough to surprise and delight us all year round.

Alex has over a decade of market research experience and a track record in building solutions that deliver insights rooted in his clients’ issues. He is responsible for BrainJuicer’s Western Region, including offices in Chicago and Los Angeles, and was one of the pioneers of BrainJuicer’s FeelMore50™ - a ranking of the most effective, emotional US ads in 2013.

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