Super Bowl XLIX Ad Winners and Losers

With 30 seconds of advertising costing a cool $4.5 million, brands had a lot riding on their Super Bowl purchases. Who made the best use of their ad dollars?

The New England Patriots cemented their win in last night’s Super Bowl with that last-second interception. But during a game that’s just as much about advertising as it is football, who were some of the other winners?

Winners

Budweiser followed up its wildly popular “Puppy Love” ad from last year with a sequel, “Lost Dog.” Once again, Budweiser was the winner of USA Today‘s Ad Meter, in which 7,000 consumers voted on ads. Going into the game, “Lost Dog” had nearly 19 million views on YouTube, despite only having been released a few days earlier. Similarly, consumers voted for ads on Ace Metrix; “Lost Dog” earned an Ace score of 652, the second-highest of the night.

According to Amobee Brand Intelligence, Budweiser got 238,239 mentions on social media – mostly Twitter, in addition to publically visible Facebook and YouTube comments – and 48 percent were positive. It certainly helped that Budweiser was one of the more visible advertisers during the Super Bowl. The beer brand aired three-and-a-half minutes of commercials. Two of those ads have the most YouTube views.

Like Budweiser, Coca-Cola had an Ace score of 652. Though Coke finished in the middle of Ad Meter’s rankings, the soft drink giant had a successful Super Bowl on Twitter. According to Amobee Brand Intelligence, Coca-Cola was the most popular brand on the platform. Coke had significantly fewer social mentions (125,640) than Budweiser, but 60 percent of its mentions were positive. In addition, #MakeItHappy was still trending earlier this morning.

Procter & Gamble and its feminine hygiene brand Always didn’t get many mentions on Twitter, but only if you’re going by the actual brand name. The #LikeAGirl hashtag was tweeted more than 403,000 times during the game. The commercial, which focused on female strength, also got the second-place score on USA Today‘s Ad Meter.

According to both the Amobee Brand Intelligence’s social media rankings and NetBase Analytics’ Brand Passion Index, Skittles just missed the top five. But the candy company, a high performer on Ace Metrix, is still worth mentioning as the highest-ranked of the newcomers. Skittles’ first Super Bowl ad garnered more than 85,000 social mentions and 1.2 million views since it was uploaded to YouTube yesterday.

With a score of 706, McDonald’s was ranked highest on Ace Metrix for its “Pay With Lovin'” commercial about people paying for their meals with hugs and accolades. The ad, which NetBase also awarded first place, sparked 83,000 social media mentions, only 19 percent of which were negative, which is impressive as McDonald’s struggles with popularity. The world’s largest fast-food chain practiced what it preached, giving shout-outs to its fellow brand advertisers on Twitter throughout the commercial breaks.

ClickZ was only going to mention our top five winners, but in the spirit of McDonald’s sharing love, we decided to add a sixth.

German glue brand Loctite took a huge risk by investing its entire 2015 advertising budget on its entertainingly bizarre Super Bowl ad. It paid off – had you heard of Loctite before this?

Losers

In Nationwide’s second Super Bowl commercial of the night, a little boy lists all the things he won’t ever be able to do. “I won’t grow up,” he says, “because I died from an accident.” The car insurance provider’s somber “Make Safe Happen” ad did not go over well. With more than 238,000 mentions, Nationwide edged out Budweiser as the most talked-about brand; however, the overwhelming majority of those mentions were negative. Nationwide is still trending on Twitter, mostly because people are sharing links to the insurance company’s comments on the backlash, and making fun of “Make Safe Happen.”

Super Bowl XLIX had a number of strong auto ads – Fiat and BMW were standouts on social media – but the utterly forgettable Honda commercial was not among them. Another spot that fell flat was Valeant Pharmaceuticals’ ad for Jubila, a topical liquid used for treating toenail fungus. The amateurish ad, centered on a fungus-infected toe playing football, came in dead last on USA Today‘s Ad Meter.

Next to last, according to those consumers, was T-Mobile. The commercial, which starred Kim Kardashian parodying herself, was one of the most-watched on YouTube, but it didn’t resonate with people. In addition to many negative tweets, Kim’s Data Stash earned one of the lowest Ace scores. T-Mobile’s other ad, featuring Sarah Silverman and Chelsea Handler, wasn’t nearly as disliked, though it also wasn’t nearly as memorable.

In Weight Watchers’ inaugural Super Bowl ad, Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul compares junk food to drugs, saying things like, “Coming down’s going to be rough, you’re going to need an upper” and “Go ahead, treat yourself” over a montage of burgers, pizza, and desserts. It was a good idea in theory, but is it effective for Weight Watchers to run a minute-long commercial that includes 47 seconds of appetizing-looking junk food?

Buzz

This year’s Super Bowl was the most-tweeted one yet, with more than 28.4 million tweets related to the game. A Twitter heat map shows that all over the country, people were tweeting about the interception that cost the Seahawks the game.

twitter-heat-map

Meanwhile, on Facebook, more than 1.3 million people-per-minute were posting, commenting, and liking Super Bowl-related content during that play. According to Facebook, more than 65 million users were active on the site during the game, a number 130 percent higher than that of 2014.

Besides the last few seconds of the game, the halftime show saw the most social activity. Consumers had a lot to say about Katy Perry’s robotic lioness, duet with Missy Elliott, and back-up dancing sharks.

katy-shark

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