It turns out not
all TV programs are right for all brands – no matter how super they are in
attracting an audience. Not even if it turns out to be the Super Bowl itself. Findings from the Brand Keys 12th annual Super Bowl Engagement Survey shows that
when it comes to winning, only half of
this year’s Super Bowl XLVIII’s advertisers will score big based on their big
investments.
According to Super Bowl advertiser playbooks, brands
are all wishing for ads that score big: big audiences, big creative, big buzz, and
big emotional engagement. Well, all advertisers can count on at least two of
those wishes to come true, because the Super Bowl has long been a showcase of
big creative and it always attracts big audiences. Usually around 160 million
viewers. More, depending on the teams that reach the title game. Remember the
game?Ultimately all advertising should be judged not just how an ad entertains, but how it performs off the field – in the marketplace arena. Does the ad engage and build the brand? Does it build a brand defense against competition? Does it engage enough to drive sales? That’s how brands really keep score. Super Bowl advertisers are already guaranteed awareness in a game known as much for the payers as it is for the players. Viewers go out for a pizza or beer run during the game, so they don’t miss the ads, and this year that costs around $134,000 per second. Brands that can afford that aren’t usually in contention for an awareness trophy.To find out which of the 29 brands reported in the press to be Super Bowl advertisers are going to rack up big numbers on the engagement scoreboard on February 2nd, Brand Keys conducted its annual Super Bowl Engagement Survey, polling a national sample of 1,660 men and women who indicated they were going to watch the big game, and measured to what degree advertiser brand values were influenced by appearing on the Super Bowl.
WINNERS
|
DRAWS
|
LOSERS
|
|
Doritos +13
|
Pepsi
+9
|
Budweiser
|
Jaguar -5
|
Coca Cola +12
|
Butterfingers
+8
|
Cheerios
|
Dannon -6
|
Hyundai
+11
|
Wonderful
Pistachios +8
|
Chrysler
|
H&M
-8
|
M&M’s
+11
|
SodaStream
+7
|
GM
|
Oikos
-8
|
Axe
+10
|
Toyota
+6
|
KIA
|
Volkswagen
-8
|
GoDaddy
+10
|
Audi
+5
|
|
Squarespace
-9
|
Heinz
+9
|
|
|
TurboTax
-10
|
Old
Spice +9
|
|
|
Intuit
-12
|
Think of being seen as the ad effectiveness pre-game
show. When the brand gets into people’s living rooms, it doesn’t matter how
many consumers tweet if it doesn’t increase engagement levels and sales.
Otherwise the brand has just spent a ton of money for a lot of buzz and not a
lot of buy. On Super Bowl Sunday, when attention is literally paid to all, the final
play that matters isn’t what ad made us laugh hardest or brought a tear to our
eye, but which ad moved target consumers closer to the brands sending the
messages.
The final score: Engagement
assessments are separate and apart from numbers of eyeballs, and can provide a
brand team with a really reliable scouting report about how super their media
buy and brand engagement will actually be. The
Super Bowl Engagement Survey, like the Brand
Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index, predictively measures consumers’ emotional
and rational reactions to brands in
the context of the medium, with results that correlate very highly with
consumer behavior and that have been validated as reliable predictors of future
brand purchase. A laugh, a sigh, or a tweet alone isn’t really an acceptable return on a
budget spend this big.
Connect with Robert on LinkedIn.
Find out more about what makes customer loyalty happen and how Brand Keys metrics is able to predict future consumer behavior: brandkeys.com. Visit our YouTube channel to learn more about Brand Keys methodology, applications and case studies.