Not far behind Rocket Mortgage this year was Amazon’s “Mind Reader” commercial starring a psychic Alexa device, Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost, coming in No. 2 on the Ad Meter with an average score of 6.78.
That was closely followed by a spot from Frito-Lay promoting both Doritos and Cheetos Flamin’ Hot, which cast Megan Thee Stallion and Charlie Puth as animated jungle critters; it scored a 6.73 on the scale.
Rounding out the top five most well-received commercials were two automakers: Kia, a long-time Super Bowl advertiser which returned to the game after sitting out in 2021, took home fourth place with an ad from David & Goliath, while Toyota secured the fifth-place spot with its heartwarming “Brothers” ad from Saatchi & Saatchi.
On the whole, though, this year’s Ad Meter scores are lower than usual, suggesting that either the quality of Super Bowl ads is on the decline or viewers are getting more cynical. While this year’s highest score was a 6.82, the Ad Meter-winning ads from the past five years all scored above a 7 out of 10.
Coinbase's last-place performance—which came as many ad industry pundits applauded the spot—may not come as a huge surprise as audiences, especially those who contribute their opinions to the Ad Meter, traditionally give higher scores to funny commercials and lower scores to those that “push the envelope,” so to speak.
In 2019, for example, Burger King’s “Eat Like Andy” commercial, which was actually just 45 seconds of archival footage showing artist Andy Warhol eating a Whopper, ranked last on that year’s Ad Meter with an average score of 3.6.
However, the viewer preferences demonstrated by the Ad Meter’s final tally do not necessarily mean a Super Bowl commercial was a success or failure; in fact, it seems to be quite the opposite in Coinbase’s case. The ad drove so many people to the crypto platform that its website briefly crashed, not to mention the thousands of organic tweets it spawned immediately after airing—including a handful of parodies by other brands.