Introduction
Media tentpole events are all about focused attention and concentrated audiences. As we have moved away from traditional broadcast media toward on demand content, these types of big ticket moments are fewer and farther between. However, the Superbowl continues to draw massive attention from users with an added expectation that brands will showcase their best work and entertain audiences throughout the event.
For years Superbowl advertisers have been influencing the very fabric of the game. In 1990 Time Magazine said this about advertising influence on American Football: “The medium that once simply covered America’s favorite sports has virtually taken them over. As the money keeps growing, so does TV’s determination to get the most from its investment by orchestrating the show for maximum viewer appeal…Starting next season, pro football will add two more teams to the play-offs and, by the fall of 1992, two more weeks to the season. That will probably push the Super Bowl into February, which just happens to be a ratings ’sweeps’ period.”
Putting a spot in the Football championships is no small endeavor. It has become a contest in and of itself. In many ways, putting a brand’s core creative team on display for 30 seconds of fame. The costs are staggering, reaching well into the millions of dollars. Production teams need to be built specifically just to work on these standalone projects and many advertisers question whether the cost is worth the reach. Yet year after year, brands compete in their own advertising championships vying for consumer attention, reach, and influence.
The pressure is also immense. People watching the game are often as interested in the commercials as they are in the teams. The quality and caliber of the creative is equal parts entertainment and sales strategy. Brand authenticity is on full display during one of the few times when most of the U.S. market is glued to the TV screen. In these moments, the most lasting images of brands are built around authentic presentations of culturally relevant themes, humorous quips, and clever skits that thread a deep connection to the brands. It is clear that a blend of empathy, facts, storytelling, authenticity, and art come together to form more perfect executions.
Purpose driven communications have become increasingly important to consumers in recent years. Nowhere is this more evident than during the Superbowl commercials. As stated by Aakriti Goel and Elise Alverson in this 2022 article by Ogilvy, “An organization’s Purpose is the reason why it exists. It’s the red thread that runs across the entire organization. It is what could define everything about the organization from the products it makes to the way it treats its people. Purpose is not how the organization presents itself to the external world. It is how an organization defines its reason for being. If done right, Purpose can be a winning strategy- for now and the future.” In watching the commercials on display this year and in looking at some of the spots which have had multi-year staying power, it is interesting to consider successful ads from the perspective of a brand’s “authentic self”.
The importance of these ads and their impact is most apparent in the USA Today Article which saw more than 160K people respond with their votes on their favorite ads. The sheer scale of people’s desire to participate in ranking these ads lends evidence to the scale, impact and attention of this audience.
Methodology for Ranking the Ad Spots
When watching these ads live, some clear favorites appear. But everyone gets up to use the bathroom, or grab another drink, or have a conversation. And there is debate, especially for niche products with a specific ICP. So I wanted to see how good each of SuperBowl LVIII ads are when you try to level the playing field?
The first step was to watch all the commercials on YouTube. Using a basic framework/rubric along with an index of consumer sentiment using USA Today’s Ad Meter Competition. I scored the ads and then compared them to consumer responses. By and large, the assessment came back pretty spot on except for a few outliers. So I thought about this for a bit and found that it is almost more interesting to look at the outliers than the consensus. In most cases the commercials were just more targeted messages like the Kawasaki Mullet’s commercial where the model scored slightly higher than USA Today. This message as an example where this was clearly addressed to a specific group of outdoor enthusiasts, but still resonated with a broader audience. Examples like this show up throughout the exercise.
It was also interesting to note that the model helped explain a bit why M&Ms Almost Champions, Coors Light Chill Train, Popeye’s Wait is Over, and the Launch of Homes.com all scored poorly. You can clearly see a lack of narrative, resonance, tone, and seamlessness despite high production value.
Scoring Criteria for the Qualitative Ads Framework
To level set against certain advertising best-practices and key themes we weighted scores for each spot and also weighted them using the consumer vote from USA today. For scores that tied we broke the tie using the weighting of consumer perception. The following rubric was used:
- Storytelling
- Narrative Structure
- Brand Narratives
- Story Arcs
- Emotional Appeal
- Resonance
- Authenticity
- Social Impact
- Relevance
- Culture
- Risk Reward
- Humor
- Production Value
- Visual Aesthetic
- Production Quality
- Technical Innovation
- Brand Integration and Product Placement
- Seamlessness
- Subliminal Messaging
- Brand Alignment
- Consumer Perception Index (using USA Today Scores)
Our Top 43 Superbowl Ads Ranked
Below are the top 43 of the 59 ad spots that ran during the most recent “Big Game” based on a loose qualitative composite creative assessment. If you would like to learn more about the criteria we used and the findings from this exercise, please reach out to us on our Contact Page
- Like a Good Neighbaa by StateFarm
- Talkin Like Walkin by BMW
- An American Story by Volkswagen
- Perfect 10 by Kia
- Worth Remembering by Uber Eats
- The Dunkings by Dunkin’
- Javier in Frame by Google
- Born To Play by NFL
- Old School Delivery by Budweiser
- Can’t B Broken by Verizon
- Mayo Cat by Hellman’s
- Mullets by Kawasaki
- Hard Knocks by Dove
- Easy Night Out by Bud Light
- That T-Mobile Feeling by T-Mobile
- Having A Blast by Mountain Dew
- Twist of an Oreo by Oreo
- Tina Fey Books Whoever by Booking.com
- The Future of Soda by Poppi
- Mr. P by Pringles
- Microsoft Game Day by Copilot
- Gift Mode by Etsy
- Dina & Mita by Doritos
- Michael Cera Ve by Cera Ve
- Hail Arnold by Paramount+
- Here’s To Science by Pfizer
- He’s Won Enough by BetMGM
- Auditions by T-Mobile
- Judge Beauty by e.l.f. cosmetics
- Dareful Handle by Toyota
- Silence by Foundation to Combat Antisemitism
- Mr. T in Skechers by Skechers
- Picklebabies by ETrade
- Yes! by Reese’s
- Nerd’s Big Game by Nerd’s
- Extraterrentrials by Apartments.com
- Superior Beach by Michelob Ultra
- Foot Washing by He Gets Us
- Couch Potato Farms by Pluto TV
- M&M Almost Champions by M&Ms
- Coors Light Chill Train by Coors Light
- The Wait is Over by Popeyes
- Launch by Homes.com
“`