Setting a pregnant Rihanna and her half-time performance to one side – marketing decision-platform System1 has ranked the top-performing commercials from the big game last night.
The Super Bowl LVII final was packed full of movie and TV homages, but Disney’s 100th-anniversary celebration managed to hold off the return of the M&Ms ‘spokescandies’.
Using System1’s short and long term commercial-impact star-rating measurement, the ‘Disney100 Special Look’ advertisement took home the big prize achieving a 5.3 star score. The ad collated scenes from various iconic Disney films, series, stage productions, theme parks, and fans, as well as a collection of inspiring words from Walt Disney himself.
Taking second place was M&Ms ‘Back For Good’ 4.8 stars campaign which saw the ‘spokescandies’ return after they were recently replaced by US comedian Maya Rudolph who controversially put clams inside the chocolate candies earlier this month. “The publicity around the stunt and the warm welcome back underline how crucial Fluent Device characters like this can be to brands,” System1 added.
Bagging the title of the third most successful Super Bowl LVII ad was T-Mobile and its ‘New Year New Neighbour’ ad. The spot – which scored 4.7 stars – saw John Travolta update his famous ‘Summer Nights’ performance to sing the praises of T-Mobile broadband alongside Zach Braff and Donald Faison.
In fourth place was Amazon’s 4.4 star commercial which advertised its Prime shopping service with the story of a lonely dog. The ad was described as a ‘powerful emotional journey for the viewer’ by System1.
Following closely behind in fifth place was Jeep and its ‘Electric Boogie’ advertisement which scored 4.3 stars and depicted animals dancing to musician Shaggy’s latest track.
Filling the sixth to tenth places on the most emotionally engaging Super Bowl ad list this year are Michelob Ultra, Paramount+, The Farmer’s Dog, Bud Light and Popcorners.
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System1 also highlighted five key themes from the tournament commercials this year, these being movie/TV homages, ‘playing it safe with celebrities’, co-branding, ‘ads about ads’ and TikTok.
“The Super Bowl is the most anticipated US advertising event of the year and a sizable investment for brands so there’s a lot of pressure for commercials to drive results,” System1 chief customer officer Jon Evans said. “This year saw a welcome jump in overall scores, and a rich 5-Star ad from Disney. The big theme we saw was nostalgia with homages to classic film and TV doing particularly well. Nostalgia can be great at boosting effectiveness but it can lead to an over-reliance on celebrities, and that’s what we’ve seen in a lot of ads this year. After all, celebrities are no replacement for great characters of your own.”
On top of System1’s analysis of Super Bowl LVII ads this year, advertising firm Brandwatch also measured the amount of brand Twitter mentions during the game. Tubi and Bud Light recieved 39,000 and 37,000 respectively, while Disney garnered 22,000 mentions. Michelob ULTRA, Doritos, Netflix, PopCorners, Apple Music, Pepsi Zero Sugar and He Gets Us were also mentioned between 17,000 – 11,000 times each.
According to Brandwatch, the mentions equated to all the Super Bowl brands being mentioned 1,300 times per minute on Twitter during the game.
