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?

GoDaddy.com has turned heads over the past few years with its raunchy, random Super Bowl advertising. To its credit, GoDaddy.com has stood out against behemoth advertisers - but do consumers know what product or service is being sold? Andrew Graff takes readers on a tour of a brand’s advertising objectives and motivations when it comes to the Super Bowl.

From the article:
According to Andrew Graff of Allen & Gerritsen, a Super Bowl appearance is a good way to change [low consumer awareness]. With “100 million captive viewers” and a bevy of media coverage devoted to Super Bowl ads, any company that shells out for airtime is going to get noticed.

But a marketing campaign cannot thrive on Super Bowl ads alone. “You have to make sure you have a strategy behind the one-time event,” Graff said.

For the full article, click here.