Top Super Bowl 50 Commercials: Which Brands Won The Big Game?

Which Super Bowl ads were the biggest win­ners for brands? Well, dif­fer­ent met­rics pro­vide dif­fer­ent answers.

Greg Jarboe By Greg Jarboe from SEO-PR. Join the discussion » 0 comments

Sports fans know that the Den­ver Bron­cos beat the Car­oli­na Pan­thers by a score of 24 to 10 to win Super Bowl 50. All morn­ing, mar­keters and con­sumers have been talk­ing about their favorite Super Bowl ads. But which ads were the biggest win­ners for brands? Well, dif­fer­ent met­rics pro­vide dif­fer­ent answers.

YouTube Views: Top 10 Super Bowl Ads & Teasers

YouTube announced the top trend­ing Big Game ads and teasers on YouTube (by views) through Wednes­day, Feb. 3. That right – these ads were declared win­ners four days before Super Bowl Sun­day! Can they do that? Well, about 110 mil­lion view­ers have tuned in to the tele­vi­sion broad­cast of the Big Game every year since 2011. But, accord­ing to YouTube data, Super Bowl 50 ads and teasers had been watched more than 140 mil­lion times as of Feb. 3, 2016, with more than half of all views com­ing from mobile devices. Accord­ing to YouTube data, peo­ple had already watched near­ly 200 years’ worth of Big Game ads and teasers on YouTube four days before the Big Game, includ­ing over a century’s worth of Super Bowl 50 ads watched on mobile alone. Close to 40 Big Game ads, and over 130 teasers and ads com­bined, had been post­ed to YouTube at least four days before Super Bowl Sun­day, rep­re­sent­ing near­ly all of the brands who aired spots dur­ing the Big Game. And for good rea­son. Brands that release their ad on YouTube before the game receive an aver­age of 2.2x more views than those that wait­ed until game day to post an ad, accord­ing to a Pix­a­bil­i­ty Indus­try Study of Super Bowl 2015 YouTube Ads. This year, the top pre-game ad was from Hyundai. It has sur­passed 15 mil­lion views in just three days to become the most watched ad or teas­er as of Feb. 3.

We use YouTube to jump-start the con­ver­sa­tion around our com­mer­cials,” Dean Evans, Chief Mar­ket­ing Offi­cer, Hyundai Motor Amer­i­ca, told Natal­ie Marchant, YouTube Spon­sor­ships Pro­gram Man­ag­er. “Peo­ple need to see them, like them and want to talk about them. And that’s what YouTube allows us to do.” Here’s the top trend­ing Big Game ads and teasers on YouTube (by views) through Feb. 3:

1. Hyundai — The Chase – Hyundai Super Bowl Commercial | The 2017 Hyundai Elantra

2. Pokémon — #Pokemon20: Pokémon Super Bowl Commercial

3. Pepsi — Jerry Rice and Shannon Sharpe Party Fail Study | Walmart | Pepsi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYau1vaCpag

4. AXEAXE — Find Your Magic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzTSE6kcLwY

5. TurboTax — TurboTax 2016 Commercial “George Smoot Simple Questions” (Official :30) TV Ad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqinSvgeJQI

6. TurboTax — TurboTax 2016 Commercial “Michio Kaku Absolute Zero” (Official :30) TV Ad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WNlWyFgLCg

7. UnitedHealthcare — UnitedHealthcare | Delivery :30

8. Wix.com — Kung Fu Panda’s Po Discovers the Power of Wix | Wix.com #StartStunning 2016 Big Game Campaign

9. TurboTax — TurboTax 2016 Commercial “S. James Gates W‑2” (Official :30) TV Ad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbyLFql8qKM

10. MINI USAMINI USA | #DefyLabels Big Game TV Spot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9XqYAzbmTI

USA Today’s Ad Meter: Top 5 Super Bowl Commercials

On the oth­er hand, USA Today con­ducts a live poll dur­ing the tele­cast of the Big Game. And here are the 5 best Super Bowl 50 com­mer­cials, accord­ing to Ad Meter vot­ers:

1. Hyundai, “First Date” Score: 6.91

2. Heinz, “Wiener Stampede” Score: 6.64

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOlfhBT8i9I

3. Doritos, “Ultrasound” Score: 6.61

4. Doritos, “Doritos Dogs” Score: 6.49

5. Hyundai, “Ryanville” Score: 6.27

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njKapVGzbuc

Unruly: Top 10 Most Shared Ads of Super Bowl 50

Final­ly, there’s video ad tech com­pa­ny Unruly’s Super Bowl 2016 Crown, which ranks Face­book as well as YouTube videos by the num­ber of shares they attract on Face­book and the blo­gos­phere as opposed to the num­ber of views. Accord­ing to Unruly, rank­ing brand­ed con­tent by the vol­ume of active pass-on rather than the more pas­sive met­ric of video con­sump­tion (views) is “a true mea­sure of a brand’s viral suc­cess.” Unruly’s stats are based on data from Unruly Ana­lyt­ics, which were com­piled on Feb. 8, 2016. Accord­ing to Unruly’s data, Dori­tos “Ultra­sound’ is the most shared ad of Super Bowl 2016. The ad, which fea­tures a preg­nant woman get­ting an ultra­sound while her hus­band munch­es on a bag of Dori­tos, attract­ed a total of 893,465 shares, putting it way ahead of the extend­ed ver­sion of T‑Mobile’s “Restrict­ed Bling”, in sec­ond spot (346,854 shares).

Dori­tos’ win brings Budweiser’s Super Bowl dom­i­nance to an end. The AB InBev company’s ads have fin­ished at the top of the pile for the last three Super Bowls, but the beer brand had to set­tle for third spot this year, with “Give A Damn”, fea­tur­ing Helen Mir­ren, attract­ing 301,317 shares. Despite a num­ber of brands releas­ing their ads ear­ly online, this year has seen a sig­nif­i­cant decrease in shar­ing activ­i­ty from the pre­vi­ous year. The top 10 ads have so far gen­er­at­ed 2,889,156 shares online alto­geth­er — a 36 per­cent decrease on what the top 10 man­aged at the same time last year (4,485,297) and only slight­ly high­er than in 2014 (2,460,075). “The Super Bowl offers brands an ide­al oppor­tu­ni­ty to engage con­sumers, but this year adver­tis­ers failed to cre­ate con­tent that fans and view­ers want to watch and share,” Sara Wood, Unruly’s co-founder and co-CEO said. “Last year was an emo­tion­al roller­coast­er; this year was Super Bowl lite.” In fourth spot is an ad cel­e­brat­ing the 20-year anniver­sary of Poke­mon, fol­lowed by the extend­ed ver­sion of Heinz’s cute “Wiener Stam­pede” in fifth. The 30-sec­ond ver­sion of the same ad also makes the top 10. While Dori­tos took the num­ber one posi­tion, T‑Mobile man­aged to get more ads in the top 10 than any oth­er brand. Both the extend­ed and 30-sec­ond ver­sions of “Restrict­ed Bling” star­ring rap­per Drake, fea­ture in the top 10, while “Drop The Balls” was in ninth – despite only being released online on Sun­day. Oth­er ads to appear in this year’s top 10 include Hyundai’s “First Date” (6th), star­ring US come­di­an Kevin Hart, and Moun­tain Dew’s “#Pup­py­Mon­key­Ba­by” (7th). Here is Unruly’s rank­ing of the most shared ads of Super Bowl 50:

The 30-sec­ond ver­sion of the same ad also makes the top 10. While Dori­tos took the num­ber one posi­tion, T‑Mobile man­aged to get more ads in the top 10 than any oth­er brand. Both the extend­ed and 30-sec­ond ver­sions of “Restrict­ed Bling” star­ring rap­per Drake, fea­ture in the top 10, while “Drop The Balls” was in ninth – despite only being released online on Sun­day. Oth­er ads to appear in this year’s top 10 include Hyundai’s “First Date” (6th), star­ring US come­di­an Kevin Hart, and Moun­tain Dew’s “#Pup­py­Mon­key­Ba­by” (7th). Here is Unruly’s rank­ing of the most shared ads of Super Bowl 50:

1. Dori­tos — Ultra­sound Agency: Peter Carstairs Total shares: 893,465

2. T‑Mobile — Restrict­ed Bling (Extend­ed Ver­sion) Agency: Pub­li­cis Seat­tle Total Shares: 346,854

3. Bud­weis­er #GiveADamn Agency: Anom­aly Total shares: 301,317

4. Poke­mon — #Pokemon20: Poké­mon Super Bowl Com­mer­cial Agency: Omelet Total shares: 297,706

5. Heinz — Wiener Stam­pede (Extend­ed Ver­sion) Agency: DAVID Mia­mi Total shares: 295,805

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNN9nL2vppM

6. Hyundai — First Date Agency: Inno­cean World­wide Total shares: 245,656

7. Moun­tain Dew — #Pup­py­Mon­key­Ba­by Agency: BBDO Total shares: 158,481

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql7uY36-LwA

8. T‑Mobile — Restrict­ed Bling (30 Sec) Agency: Pub­li­cis Seat­tle Total shares — 124,551

9. T‑Mobile — Drop the Balls Agency: Pub­li­cis Seat­tle Total shares — 113,668

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI8YZdejPKg

10. Heinz — Wiener Stam­pede 30 sec Agency: DAVID Mia­mi Total shares 111,643

Which Metrics Should Professional Marketers Use?

So, which met­rics should pro­fes­sion­al mar­keters use? Actu­al­ly, the right answer is: All of the above. Mea­sure­ment is essen­tial, both for defin­ing suc­cess and opti­miz­ing toward it. So, it is impor­tant to iden­ti­fy the right Key Per­for­mance Indi­ca­tors (KPIs) to mea­sure the suc­cess of your brand’s viral video mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy. Most pro­fes­sion­al mar­keters find it use­ful to select one met­ric for each of the fol­low­ing three buck­ets that mea­sure engage­ment with their con­tent:

  • Audi­ence: Are you reach­ing the right audi­ence? How well?
  • Expres­sion: Is your tar­get audi­ence engag­ing with your con­tent? How much?
  • Par­tic­i­pa­tion: Is your audi­ence endors­ing and shar­ing your con­tent? How much?

The num­ber of views is a key met­ric for the first buck­et. The Ad Meter is a key met­ric for the sec­ond buck­et. And the num­ber of shares is a key met­ric for the third buck­et. Hope­ful­ly, this gives you a 360-degree, 3D view of what suc­cess­ful video mar­ket­ing looks like today. But by next year’s Super Bowl, who knows what it will look like. For exam­ple, mil­lions of view­ers may be able to “watch” the next year’s Big Game using Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty (VR) devices. In his keynote speech at CES 2016, Robert Kyn­cl, the Chief Busi­ness Offi­cer at YouTube, said, “For VR to be tru­ly suc­cess­ful, you need four things to hap­pen. You need the cam­era tech­nol­o­gy to cap­ture video in 3D and 360, you need a sto­ry­teller who can cre­ate con­tent using that tech­nol­o­gy, you need a device for users to view it and you need a plat­form on which that con­tent can live.” All four of these things are expect­ed to hap­pen in 2016. So, you can expect the world of video mar­ket­ing to change dra­mat­i­cal­ly before Super Bowl 2017.

Greg Jarboe

Written by Greg Jarboe

President, SEO-PR

Greg Jarboe is President and co-founder of SEO-PR, an award-winning content marketing agency that was founded in 2003. He’s the author of YouTube and Video Marketing and also a contributor to The Art of SEO, Strategic Digital Marketing, Complete B2B Online Marketing, and Enchantment. He’s profiled in the book Online Marketing Heroes, a frequent speaker at industry conferences, and writes for Tubular Insights and The SEM Post. He’s an executive education instructor at the Rutgers Business School and the Video and Content Marketing faculty chair at Simplilearn.

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