And, the Winners Are...
For those in the industry, competition between brands (and their commercials) often overshadows competition on the field - and the morning after, everyone wants to know who won. USA Today's annual Ad Meter , which measures ad success with second-by-second responses from a panel of viewers, had its first-ever tie. Both Doritos and Bud Light won the hearts of viewers with ads featuring dogs. No ad in the top 10 of the Ad Meter selections featured a celebrity (unless you count VW's Little Darth Vader ad featuring talented 6 -year-old Max Page who was a guest on The Today Show this morning).
Anticipating that viewers would turn to Twitter to share real-time reactions to commercials, Brand Bowl set out again to score and rank ads based on total number of tweets - containing hash tag #BrandBowl - and their positive or negative sentiments. (Ads are still being measured in real time). Here are a few of the most buzzed about brands of right now - for better or worse:
- VW: score of 140 with 3,943 total tweets, overwhelming positive (+19.4)
- Chrysler: score of 127 with 3648 total tweets, mostly positive (+17.1)
- Groupon: score of 81 with 2775 total tweets, mostly negative (-4.5)
- Motorola: score of 59 with 1759 total tweets, mostly positive (+3.5)
First Call's Michael Jacobson (@MJ4030) joined fellow marketing and brand experts for a live roundtable discussion via Twitter, hosted by Sports Business Daily. A summary of their conversation can be found in today's issue of The Daily (or you can follow the hash tag #SBDSB) - but in the end Chrysler and Volkswagen emerged as the clear winners.
Musicians Reigned the Night
Audi featured saxophonist Kenny G as a riot suppressor in their escape from "Old Luxury" prison spot. Audi says Kenny G was chosen for his "unmistakable music, whose songs and stylings brings the audience back to a certain era." The Black Eyed Peas appeared as cartoon versions of themselves in the commercial for Chatter.com, an online firm that allows colleagues to share files anywhere in the world with fellow employees. The spot aired just before the real Black Eyes Peas performed during the Half-Time Show. Eminem appeared in two commercials this year. In a spot for Lipton Brisk, he appears in claymation talking about being "asked to do commercials all the time." Set to the rapper's "Lose Yourself," his spot for Chrysler served as both a tribute to Detroit's past and a look to the future in introducing the Chrysler 200. Two-time U.S. Champion figure-skater Alissa Czisny, a member of the Detroit Skating Club, was also featured in the spot.
Country musician Faith Hill starred in a spot for Teleflora titled "Help Me Faith." The commercial takes place in a recording studio, with Hill offering advice to a young sound engineer who is sending a Teleflora bouquet to his girlfriend for Valentine's Day. Diddy loses his silver Mercedes-Benz in a spot for the car company and its new futuristic Mercedes-Benz Biome, which isn't expected to hit the road until 2015. Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne joined forces with teen-star Justin Bieber as they demonstrated the progression of technology from 3G mobile phones to 4G and even 6G for Best Buy. The cast of Glee starred in a new commercial for Chevrolet that aired during the post-Super Bowl episode of the series. The ad, which features Sue Sylvester telling the Glee club that she has booked them for a commercial, was teased during the actual game.
Sex Sells
Go Daddy once again went for risqué with two spots featuring their spokeswoman racecar driver Danica Patrick. Patrick was joined by television personality Joan Rivers, and fitness trainer and The Biggest Loser star Jillian Michaels as the new Go Daddy girls. Reality star Kim Kardashian flirted her way through Skeckers Super Bowl spot touting the message that you can break up with your personal trainer if you wear Skechers Shape-Ups. In their Super Bowl advertising debut, Stella Artois looked to Oscar-winning actor Adrien Brody. Brody appears to be serenading a group of women with a smooth, classy song. Only instead it turns out that he is actually singing to a glass of Stella Artois.
Unmistakable Voices and Faces
Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges continued his voiceover work for Hyundai, who featured three in-game commercials in its fourth consecutive year of Super Bowl advertising. Also doing voiceover work for Super Bowl ads were Tim Allen for Chevrolet and Jon Hamm for Mercedes-Benz. Trying to recreate the magic of Betty White's commercial last year, comedic legends Roseanne Barr and Richard Lewis appeared in Snickers' ad titled "Logging." The campaign will also include a series of print and digital ads that will feature the two stars. In the most controversial spot of the night, actor Timothy Hutton deplored the troubles of Tibetan culture while touting Groupon. Groupon's three Super Bowl ads were set to the same premise: saving something endangered, and a few bucks. The NFL aired a 60-second spot, titled "American Family," which featured over 40 actors who appeared on TV's most popular shows over the years, including The Brady Bunch, Cheers, Family Matters, Friends, Full House, Happy Days, Modern Family, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, South Park, and The Office, among others.
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