Super Bowl Ads: Early Returns and Market Research Experts Weigh In

Author: Brian Izenson

It’s been a wild week for the Super Bowl ads in the lead up to the Big Game. By our count, 29 of the actual ads that will air during the Super Bowl have been pre-released. Our Super Bowl ad ratings feature powered by Slidermetrix has been up-and-running since Monday, collecting viewer feedback continuously, second-by-second as they view the ads. The early returns on these ratings are always interesting to us as emerging trends tend to hold pretty consistently. That being the case, we thought we’d share a few items of note from the early returns.

Trending Up…

Love me some Scott Baio. Dial testing lines trending up especially amongst Gen X-ers (blue line) in the Avocados from Mexico spot.

Avocados from Mexico’s “#AvosInSpace” ad is currently our top rated spot. We’ve seen this formula work before two years ago with Radio Shack’s “The 80’s Called” ad. Well, it seems the ’80’s nostalgia thing still got some juice.

Honda’s “A New Truck to Love” ad also seems to be hitting the mark. Sheep lip sync-ing to Queen? See, this is why this business is so damn hard to predict.

Trending Down…

Quicken Loans “What We Were Thinking” ad is currently trending down as our viewer dial testing lines indicate.

Quicken Loans “What We Were Thinking” ad is currently the big loser. Uh, what WERE they thinking?

And then there’s SunTrust Bank’s “Hold Your Breath” ad. Seems our viewers may have passed out before they got the message on this one.

Also, Dialsmith Founder & CEO David Paull joined a panel of market research experts to preview this year’s Super Bowl ads and discuss what market researchers look at to determine the success and failure of a Super Bowl ad. Here’s the Research Business Daily Report podcast: