Ah, the day after the Super Bowl. Time to reflect on the advertising hits and misses. But how do you quantify success? (Or failure.) USA Today provided about 300 select viewers in Oregon and Virginia “ad meters” for rating commercials in real time. Of course, we also saw a wide variety of web-based polls open to all. Annually, TiVo takes the unique approach of analyzing ad success based on a sampling of DVR interaction – pauses, replays, etc. In addition to providing a top ten list of commercials, they’ve identified the top five moments per half:
Click to enlarge
After speaking with TiVo today, I’ve gotten a bit more insight into their second-by-second analysis from Todd Juenger, VP of the Audience Research and Measurement unit. The line above charts viewership in TiVo terms, and is cumulative based on how many times video is watched – taking into account those rewinds, on top of straight up viewing. The spikes clearly indicate areas of interest and total viewership seemed to have increased as the game progressed. We surprised Todd by actually focusing on the football towards the end as Cards staged a comeback: “Historically, the commercials always get highest viewership spikes, from rewinding and multiple views. The fact that the 5 highest viewership moments in the 2nd half were all game related, not commercials, is remarkable.” So, was the game that good or were the commercials that lame?
Me, I can’t say I loved any of the commercials. However, the pair I immediately recalled today, beyond the movie trailers, were the Doritos and Cheetos spots. I’ve been known to consume more than my fair share of junk food, although both ads were memorable for other reasons. The Cheetos ad was both amusing and somewhat creepy – think the Burger King. Not to mention I haven’t seen Chester the Cheetah in over a decade. (“It’s not easy being cheesy.”) And who doesn’t want to smash things at work? Which is why I found the Doritos Crystal Ball ad entertaining. As it turns out, the commercial wasn’t even developed by a pricey advertising firm. As far as misfires, the Sobe Lizard football ballet was a nonsensical disaster. And there’s probably a large contingent of television owners that Vizio didn’t connect with utilizing a condescending ‘you spent to much’ pitch.
In the recycling of tech category, DreamWork’s Monsters vs Aliens commercial and Sobe’s ballet were both presented in 3D. We don’t feel like we got much of a return on investment, given the time spent tracking down glasses and then cutting them out. In fact, while the movie looks cute, I’d rather catch it unencumbered by cardboard glasses and 3D effects that really didn’t seem to add much to our enjoyment. For compelling 3-D experiences, I’ll continue to stick with the Orlando theme parks.
In other Superbowl news, an inspired Bruce Springsteen forgot his age (59) while attempting to channel an 80s David Lee Roth during the half time show by sliding across the stage, pole dancing on the mic stand, and launching a guitar into the stratosphere. I did manage to catch a bit of the game too, and have concluded that Arizona’s pass rush was abysmal. But at least Cinderella made it to the ball.
TiVo’s Todd was a goldmine of info, although not all of it is applicable to this ad-focused post. Perhaps we can sneak some more in down here:
“I found the halftime show really interesting. For one thing, Bruce Springsteen held the same audience as the game. This is significantly better than previous years where we generally lose a good percent of viewers to fast-forwarding or channel surfing. Inside of Bruce’s 12-minute show, you can see strong audience as the show began, drifting downward during course of 10th Avenue Freeze-Out, then picking way back up at the start of Born to Run, then hitting a big drop during his obligatory new song, Working on a Dream, then building back to big audience for Glory Days finale. We all knew Bruce had to play something new, and we all anecdotally know the majority of the audience wants to hear the old favorites, here’s the first data point I’ve ever seen that quantifies it.”
Oh damn, I forgot my whole stanza on NBC’s $206 million ad revenue shell game. Given the amount of GE and NBC commercials, plus that Hulu spot, I’ve got to assume some of this money is virtual and some of these guys got discounted rates and/or pull the trigger on previously negotiated placements (as part of Hulu’s spinoff?). More worrisome would be if it’s filler.
Interesting. I don’t own a TiVo or a DVR of any kind, yet those were the moments that stick out most in my head too, so I guess they’re on to something. When I first started rehashing the ads for my post this morning I thought that they weren’t all that great. But the more I started thinking about it and rewatching them, the more I enjoyed them. Are they better combined than other years past? Probably not, but I wouldn’t consider them a failure either.
I read today that GoDaddy had major success off of their tasteless ad. Go figure.
I think some Top 10 ads made it on the list because they confused viewers so much, they had to watch them again.
Based on my impressions & office talk, people thought most ads were pretty lame and Pepsi got slammed especially hard. Bud Light too was not very creative — they had 3 or 4 horse-themed ads.
1. GoDaddy.com: “Enhanced?” — GD’s first ad was funnier, especially in the uncut version;
2. Bud Light: “Summer to Winter” — can’t believe it made to #2 as it’s nothing special;
3. Careerbuilder.com: “It May Be Time” — our office thought it had a good beginning but got very annoying towards the end b/c of repetition;
4. Doritos: “Crystal Ball” — very well-liked ad;
5. Transformers: “Revenge of the Fallen” — probably got a ton of TiVo users to rewind & rewatch because quick cuts made it impossible to tell what the heck was going on;
6. Monster.com: “Moose Head” — the fact that such plain ad made it into top 10 indicates the sub-par ad selection;
7. Bud Light: “Man Thrown out the Window” — typical Bud ad — I’d like to know which business allow beer in meetings though :)
8. Pepsi: “MacGruber/Pepsuber” — very, very, very lame; everyone here was confused (even knowing SNL origins);
9. Dennys: “Thugs” — see #6
10. Coke Zero: “Mr Polamalu” — Coke ad with bugs was better.
P.S. One thing I found interesting is that Hyundai had more ads than all other car companies combined. Four or five for Hyundai and two for others, I think (1 – Toyota, 1 – Audi).
Lacy, Oh yeah, I forgot about that Mr. Potato Head ad. I remember liking it at the time. Although I can’t remember what they were advertising. (Suppose that means it failed.)
Ivan, I agree the rewind/rewatch doesn’t necessarily imply greatness. I also agree that the Career Builder ad started out promising but got carried away. No idea why anyone would replay that one, it did plenty of that on its own.
I wish TiVo would Open Source the source code/method(s) they use to gather usage data on each box then aggregate it. If its versioned internally, then let us have an old build, one or two generations back, so we can run it on other hardware.
Come on TiVo you have benefited from open source ( LAMP stack ) give something back!
I liked the “Crystal ball” and the Pepsi One “I’m Good” commercials. All in all the commercials this year were poop. The wife brought home a bunch of the 3D glasses from work. Looked for them at a couple of stores and didn’t find them anywhere.
@ Tim — I hear ya! On the ad quality and finding the 3D glasses part. Couldn’t find them in a few places I went to, so I’m wondering how to watch last night’s Chuck 3D episode. I guess, oft to eBay I go :(
I didn’t even know I was supposed to look for 3D glasses. and when is someone going to make 3D glasses for people who wear glasses?
as for Springsteen(and I am no big fan) – he was the one doing 50 foot “knee dives” across the stage and doing the guitar tricks long before David Lee Roth even knew clothes could come with a leopord print. :)