Allen & Gerritsen’s 7th annual Meaningful Messages Super Bowl Ad Survey

Allen & Gerritsen’s 7th annual Meaningful Messages Super Bowl Ad survey ranks commercials by performance, not popularity. The survey gets to the heart of the matter: “Do you buy it?” In other words, do the ads have meaning and will you be persuaded into buying the product advertised?
Our survey found the most and least meaningful ads to be:
Most Meaningful Super Bowl Ads (Consumers “buy it”)
1. Snickers, Betty White
2. Denny’s, Chickens Across America
3. Anheuser Busch, Fences (The Clydesdale ad)
4. HomeAway.com, Griswold Trailer
5. Hyundai, 10 Years/Favre
Least Meaningful Super Bowl Ads (Consumers don’t “buy it”)
1. GoDaddy, News
2. Bridgestone, Your Tires or Your Life
3. Vizio, Forge
4. GoDaddy, Lola
5. Diamond Foods, Awesomer
According to Andrew Graff, CEO of Allen & Gerritsen, “The ads that were most meaningful were clear in what they were telling consumers what to do but were still entertaining: Revive yourself with a Snickers, get a free breakfast at Denny’s and buy a Hyundai that has a 10 year warranty that may or may not outlast Brett Favre’s football career.”
Graff added, “It’s not enough to be entertaining for 30 seconds. “Consumers don’t buy ads that are predictable and formulaic. We’ve seen the Go Daddy schtick for a few years in a row now. The least meaningful ads were certainly not worth spending $2.5 million for a chuckle.”
Survey respondents rated Super Bowl ads using a 5-point scale based on the 4 following criteria:
- Did this commercial clearly portray the value of the product or service advertised?
- Did this commercial respect you and what you believe?
- Did this commercial clearly communicate a reason to respond (e.g. purchase, go online, call for info)?
- Did this commercial fit in with the Super Bowl and did it make sense that it ran there?





