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Published February 3^rd 2015

Super Bowl Commercials: Which Brands Got Bang For Their Buck?

A 30-second ad during this year's Super Bowl costs a cool $4.5 million. We analyze which brand got the best ROI according to social.

By Phill Agnew

• 6 minutes read

Budweiser went for an attack of cute with the return of a much-loved puppy, whilst Coca-Cola stood out with their anti-bullying message.

Many brands advertising during the Super Bowl strayed from their normal approach of generating laughs and instead attempted to stir emotions. But who came out on top during the annual high-stakes battle of the Super Bowl commercials, and more importantly, which brand got value for money?

Breaking down the bucks

Companies paid a record $4.5 million for a 30 second slot during the game on Comcast Corp’s NBC Network, seen by an estimated 100 million-plus viewers – the year’s biggest television audience.

Brands celebrated fathers and tackled somber social issues in a bid to grab attention, generate buzz, and capture an audience amongst more than 70 commercials.

But who really came out on top?

Much has been written about the perceived success of Super Bowl ads this week, with many claiming a winner based on the emotions the commerical inspired or the feeling it evoked. We’ve taken a different approach.

Proving value with social data

We tracked each of the brands advertising during the Super Bowl on Sunday night. We collected the total amount of mentions they received and divided them by the amount they spent (note; the amount the spent is an estimate based on the forecast that 30 seconds on screen costs $4.5 million).

That allowed us to find exactly how much each brand were paying for each mention they received online. Here are the results:

So, the real winner isn’t Budweiser’s puppy or Nationwide’s controversial “I couldn’t grow up because I died” commercial – we excluded negative mentions from this chart, otherwise Nationwide would have been top.

In fact, Skittles’ commercial was crowned social champions. They showed a world where apparently everyone arm-wrestles over the chewy sweets, leaving a population of huge-armed freaks. Text doesn’t do it justice so take a look for yourself:

No journalist covering the Super Bowl ads chose Skittles as their top choice, which shows how important data like this truly is.

To brands, our findings show exactly how they will measure the success of their campaigns.

Instead of ranking how many eyes saw their commercial or how many users followed their Twitter account, they’re finding exactly how much conversation and interest (excluding negatives) their brand received and how this relates to the amount they paid.

Moreover, brands doing this can compare themselves to the average and see what they did wrong or what they did right.

The brands that bombed

The average cost per mention for the 24 brands we analyzed was $1,971. Five brands paid above this average with their ads. Here’s where they went wrong:

TurboTax and their commercial took viewers back to the Boston Tea Party to promote its free state tax filing. It was neither funny or exciting and viewers were not keen:

Right now everyone at @turbotax is thankful @Nationwide ad was worse than theirs #commercialfail #superbowlcommercials #SPB49

— Patrick Deak (@pdeak) February 2, 2015

Wix.com‘s advert #ItsThatEasy was filled with content but lacked something to differentiate itself from rivals GoDaddy and Squarespace:

Every web developer just winced at that WIX commercial. #SuperBowl — Ralph M. Rivera (@RalphMRivera) February 2, 2015

Mercedes-Benz recreated the classic tale of the tortoise and the hare with a spin. Despite the car manufacture spending $9 million on airing the ads, viewers simply didn’t care:

Well we know know who wasted the most money on the worst commercial. #MercedesBenz

— Jeffrey Lieber (@JeffLieber) February 2, 2015

WeatherTech‘s aged, predictable, pitch-like commercial did nothing to interest the audience:

I’m buying Weather Tech for my car, because if they can afford a commercial that boring during the #SuperBowl, they must be really good! — Chuck Nice (@chucknicecomic) February 2, 2015

Fiat Chrysler doubled up on spend, airing three ads during the Super Bowl, but they bombed on each one generating just 213 mentions per commercial.

Here’s how they compared to competitors (we’ve had to point them out as their spike was so small):

Change the way you measure

This research presents to sponsors and advertisers a different way to measure the success of their ads. Rather than just looking at qualitative or quantitate methods we’ve mixed both.

We’ve also combined the powerful, robust and reliable social data pulled in by Brandwatch Analytics with spend leaving us with a unique metric – the cost of conversation.

If you and your brand want to utilize social data in your business then get in touch and we’ll show you how.