Super Bowl Alert: Big Game ad winners and losers

Ad Age’s Super Bowl LVIII newsletter brought you all the breaking news, analysis and first looks at the high-stakes Big Game commercials. With our final 2024 edition, we present all the latest metrics on how advertisers scored in the game. While this newsletter is going on hiatus, you can sign up here for Ad Age’s other newsletters to ensure you keep getting the latest insights on creativity, marketing, agency moves and more. Neighborly love Not everyone loves USA Today’s Ad Meter, but the reality is it remains the most highly cited Super Bowl ad ranking. So State Farm marketers are likely popping champagne today after the insurer claimed the top spot in the ranking for its “Like a Good Neighbaaa” ad featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. Also celebrating is Highdive, which claims its fourth Ad Meter win—not too shabby for an agency founded less than 10 years ago. In second place was Dunkin’, with its “The DunKings” spot, followed by Kia’s “Perfect 10.” In last place was American Values 2024, a political action committee aligned with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential bid, whose old-timey spot repurposed a song associated with his uncle, President John F. Kennedy. RFK Jr., whose controversial views on topics such as vaccines are not shared by the Kennedy clan, on social media issued an apology for the ad, distancing himself from the decision by the PAC to run the spot: “I’m so sorry if the Super Bowl advertisement caused anyone in my family pain.” Watch all the Super Bowl 2024 commercials Donuts, beer and lotion Dunkin’s ad also scored well in a consumer survey conducted by Numerator, with 28.6% of respondents calling it their favorite (more than any other brand), Budweiser’s Clydesdales’ spot came in second at 21.9%. Ad Age’s Creativity Editor Tim Nudd did not share that enthusiasm, giving the Bud spot only 2.5 stars, suggesting it lacked “any real emotional heft.” Nudd was a fan of CeraVe’s “Michael CeraVe” spot, ranking it as the best ad of the game. The effort, which included a long social media-fueled influencer buildup, was also an ad industry fave, winning the Super Clio, which is determined by a panel of top industry execs. The best and worst commercials from the Big Game Making the sale Of course, marketing executives will ultimately be judged on how much their ads led to sales, a metric that won’t truly be known for days, weeks or even months. But some early effectiveness measures give us some clues. Numerator asked respondents watching the game which products in ads they would be open to purchasing and Doritos topped that list, with 60.4% of respondents listing the PepsiCo brand first, followed by M&M’s at 53.5%. (Only 12.6% chose Budweiser.) Temu, which ran the same ad three times in the game—plus two bonus plays in overtime and postgame coverage, did not fare that well in most rankings. But EDO, an analytics firm that measures Super Bowl ad effectiveness based on brand engagement, ranked it fifth, saying it generated 1,343% more engagement than the median Super Bowl ad. Watch Super Bowl 2024 hits and misses A winning strategy Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management Super Bowl Advertising Review—which uses an academic framework known as ADPLAN to evaluate the strategic effectiveness of Super Bowl ads—picked Google Pixel’s “Javier in Frame” ad as its top spot. “Once again the company was able to demonstrate a new technology that enhances the user experience, while also connecting with viewers in an unexpected, emotional way,” stated Derek Rucker, a professor of entrepreneurial studies in marketing who co-leads the review. It disagreed with EDO, scoring Temu a “D,” with Squarespace, FanDuel, Snap and American Values 2024 among the other brands getting bad grades. The top 5 Super Bowl campaigns you need to know about right now Social success When it comes to game day global YouTube views, Booking.com’s Tina Fey spot earned the most, followed by T-Mobile’s “Auditions” ad and State Farm’s ad, according to data from the YouTube AdBlitz. It also found “Who is in the Homes.com commercial?” to be one of the most searched questions of the night. The answer: Dan Levy, Heidi Gardner, Lil Wayne and Jeff Goldblum starred in the brand’s slate of three Super Bowl ads. Read more: Behind the massive ad buy for Homes.com Sprout Social found that Verizon—which featured Beyoncé in its ad—generated the most social mentions and engagements among Super Bowl advertisers, with the brand being mentioned 52,936 times on Sunday for 453,578 engagements (likes, shares, comments). But Taylor Swift—who was not in any ads, but gained plenty of screen time as she watched Travis Kelce from her stadium suite—generated more social buzz than all advertisers combined, according to Sprout, which calculated that the pop star was mentioned 548,337 times for over 5,493,492 engagements. Also read: Top 5 Super Bowl 2024 social media moments Sticking to the script And thanks to Swift, the NFL was probably the biggest winner of the night. Final Nielsen TV ratings are not in, but iSpot released its preliminary audience measurement estimates that found the Super Bowl simulcast across CBS, Univision and Nickelodeon drew an average second TV audience of approximately 126,631,888 viewers (P2+), up 10.9% from last year. The game had celebrity intrigue and went to overtime, with postgame scenes including plenty of Swift-Kelce embraces. It’s almost like the league scripted it—a concept it had fun with in its season-long marketing campaign it began way back in August.

Super Bowl Alert: Big Game ad winners and losers

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