Opinion: The biggest winners and losers of Super Bowl advertising over the past 20 years

Editor’s note: Tim Calkins is a clinical professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He teaches courses such as marketing strategy, branding, and biomedical marketing. The views expressed in this commentary are his own.view more opinions On CNN.

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Remember talking babies, when Andy Warhol was eating Whoppers, or when Amazon Alexa lost its voice? All of these were some of the notable Super Bowl ads of the past 20 years .

The Super Bowl is the biggest marketing event of the year. There is nothing else like it in the United States. The viewership is consistently over 100 million, and advertising typically costs around $7 million for each of his 30-second spots.

For the past 20 years, students at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management have been evaluating Super Bowl ads. While many people rank based on humor or likability, Kellogg’s panel has a different focus: business impact. Can Spot increase sales and build a brand?

The Super Bowl is a crowded environment, so it’s hard to stand out. The best Super Bowl ads manage to break through the clutter and communicate benefits to potential customers in a unique and memorable way.

These are some of the best Super Bowl ads of the past 20 years. All of these spots received some of the highest scores on the Kellogg panel.

Super Bowl XLIV in 2010 marked Google’s first Super Bowl appearance. The ad was simple: a love story told through a series of Google searches. It received the top score of the year from the Kellogg Committee and went down in history as a standout spot in the Super Bowl.

This ad was effective for a variety of reasons. It was attention-grabbing, completely unique, and perhaps most importantly, it demonstrated the product and the benefits of using it.

One of the most memorable Super Bowl characters of the past 20 years is E-Trade Baby. This character first appeared in his 2008 year. The message is: Investing with E-Trade is so easy that even a baby can do it. Advertisements attract attention. A baby talking about investing is an unusual sight to say the least. Equally important, E-Trade offers the benefit of ease of investment.

E-Trade went on to feature babies in a series of Super Bowl ads. The message changed over the years, but talking babies remained the center of the activity.

Amazon is one of the most successful Super Bowl advertisers, at least according to Kellogg’s Super Bowl Advertising Review Board. For five consecutive years, from 2018 to 2022, Amazon received the highest rating of A. No other advertiser in his 20-year history of Kellogg Analytics has achieved this.

But perhaps Amazon’s best spot was in 2018. The ad featured Amazon’s Alexa device, which has lost its voice. To fill the gap, Amazon assembled a roster of replacements including Gordon Ramsay, Cardi B, and Anthony Hopkins.

It’s odd to feature a product’s failure in an ad, but this spot works because it highlights all of Alexa’s various features, including providing weather, making calls, playing music, and serving recipes. .

This spot has some notable connections. The entire story revolves around the product. And the unexpected and creative idea of ​​using a celebrity to replace an ailing Alexa made this one of the most memorable Super Bowl spots.

T-Mobile is a consistent Super Bowl advertiser. Although the company has used various creative ideas over the years, the basic strategy has remained the same. In other words, attacking Verizon and positioning T-Mobile as a better alternative.

In 2017, T-Mobile published a scathing article accusing Verizon of creating wireless problems. This spot attracted attention and communicated its benefits. Avoid headaches by switching to T-Mobile for a better wireless experience. Message: “Wireless pain is fine if you’re into that kind of thing. If not, buy T-Mobile…”

Kia aired a stunning Super Bowl spot in 2019 to introduce its new SUV, the Telluride. This ad stood out for its depiction of a small Georgia town and its people. The ad said: “We want to be known for what we do, what we build, because we are not known for who we are…No, we are not famous. No. But we are building something incredible.”

This spot showed local people living a simple life. Yes, there are high-income earners, but we also take advantage of the fact that there are hard-working small-town residents who work hard and make great products, and hold them up as heroes. Overall message: Telluride is a remarkable SUV made in the United States. This spot contributed to the launch of a vehicle that became one of Kia’s most important vehicles.

Many Super Bowl spots fall flat because they don’t stand out or don’t convey a message. But for Super Bowl ads to rank at the bottom, they have to go beyond that. The least effective spots in the Super Bowl often had a negative impact.

These are some of the worst.

One of the most surprising Super Bowl spots of all time, and not in a good way, was a Nationwide ad from 2015. In that ad, a little boy was talking about all the things he didn’t want to do because he died in an accident. accident.

The spot was well-intentioned and highlighted Nationwide’s efforts to reduce accidents. Unfortunately, this ad was a failure. It received a lot of attention, much of it negative. Few people want to hear about a child who died during an afternoon of Super Bowl festivities.

Unsurprisingly, the executive in charge left the company shortly after the Super Bowl.

One of the most important things to consider when evaluating Super Bowl ads is amplification. What will people get out of it? What will stick in their minds? We want to make this something positive and connect it to our brand.

GoDaddy nailed this metric with its 2013 Super Bowl ad. The spot featured supermodel Bar Refaeli passionately kissing an awkward and slightly nerdy child. The purpose was to suggest that GoDaddy has two sides to him: a sexy side and a smart side. Unfortunately, it was the disturbing images that struck a chord with viewers.

Burger King “Eat like Andy”

One would think a spot featuring footage of Andy Warhol would work. That wasn’t the case with Burger King. In 2019, Burger King used an old video of Warhol (who died in 1987) to feature him. Eat Whopper. Maybe there was some artistry in this commercial, but it just didn’t work. The ad caused confusion as some people didn’t get the point. More importantly, Warhol’s notable lack of enthusiasm for the Whopper did little to help the brand.

Vacation rental company HomeAway ran a disappointing Super Bowl ad in 2011 that featured a baby being thrown against a window. The goal was to dramatize the challenges of staying in a small hotel room and promote the benefits of renting a home. However, the unfortunate scene sparked a huge backlash, with people complaining that the company was downplaying head injuries and showing abused children. HomeAway immediately apologized for the ad.

In 2011, Groupon aired a Super Bowl spot featuring Timothy Hutton. The actor lamented the situation in Tibet, saying, “The Tibetan people are in a difficult situation. Their very culture is at risk.” He added, “And yet they make a great fish curry.” Stated. And even better, he was saving money using his Groupon.

The spot immediately sparked backlash, with people accusing Groupon of making light of a very serious situation. The company took down the ad and apologized.

What makes the Super Bowl unique is the huge number of viewers each year. Businesses that break through the clutter and create strong ads that deliver benefits and communicate their brand will receive a huge boost. If a brand misses the mark, its reputation can suffer. A poor Super Bowl appearance could lead to an apology or a career setback.

The pressure on Super Bowl Sunday is intense for both players and advertisers. On Sunday, some marketing teams will be celebrating the successes of ads that resonate with consumers. Other marketers will wonder why the spots they worked so hard on didn’t stand out.