Ace Metrix Announces Most Effective Advertisers of the Olympics

GE, Chobani, Coca-Cola, Visa, and Procter & Gamble Earn Medals; Nike Falls Short

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Ace Metrix®, the new standard in analytics for television and video advertisers, announced the effectiveness of Olympic advertisers. Chobani and GE tied for the Gold earning an average Ace Score of 589 for ads debuting during the Olympics. Coca-Cola earns the silver (Average Ace Score: 580) and Visa earns the bronze (Average Ace Score: 573). Procter & Gamble dominates the most effective ads list with 3 of the top 10 spots. Nike’s campaign fell short overall, but their “Find Your Greatness” 60-second ad is the highest scoring Nike ad since 2010.

Medalists: Top Olympic Sponsoring Advertisers*

*Definition: The Ace Score is the measure of ad’s creative effectiveness based on viewer reaction to national TV ads. Respondents are randomly selected and representative of the U.S. TV viewing audience. The results are presented on a scale of 1-950, which represents scoring on creative attributes such as relevance, persuasion, watchability, information, attention, etc. Advertisers considered for these lists are Official London 2012 Olympic sponsors and sponsors of the 2012 USA Olympic Team airing new ads during the events that include Olympic theme or mention of sponsorship. This list identifies the three advertisers earning the highest average Ace Score for their ads leading up to or during the Olympics. Based on data collected for ads debuting up until August 12, 2012.

Chobani and GE came out of the gates quickly, with both introducing their high-scoring ads on opening day and held their lead throughout the Olympics. Chobani’s second ad, ”A Story of Revival” (Ace Score: 580) enabled them to move into a tie with GE for gold. Coca-Cola followed their strong limited edition can ads with a series of in-game vignettes featuring celebrated and competing Olympians. The consistency of their excellence is notable – only P&G debuted more ads during the Olympics. Visa leveraged the ‘voice of God’ Morgan Freeman to deliver celebratory ads of hope and triumph, earning top scores throughout the Games by engaging viewers with Olympic stories of the past and present.

Coca-Cola also introduced three new ads during the Games that were neither Olympic themed nor referenced the Company’s sponsorship, but are among the highest ads to air over the past 30 days.

Procter & Gamble: Most Valuable Player

Procter & Gamble ran the highest volume of new creative during the Olympics with a strong integrated and layered marketing effort, and produced two of the top three ads of the Games.

Individual Medalists: Top Three Olympic Sponsor Ads*

See the entire top 20 list at acemetrix.com/spotlights.

“The ‘Thank You, Mom’ campaign began securing top ad scores in April and continued serving up effective ads throughout the events,” said Peter Daboll, CEO of Ace Metrix. “P&G’s ability to emotionally connect prior to the events and build upon the theme in real-time during the Games was a powerful combination.”

Taken alone, these 16 P&G corporate ads achieved an average Ace Score of 585 – good enough for a podium spot if that were all that ran from the Company. P&G’s layered approach, however, included 26 brand spots for Cover Girl, Febreze, Pantene, Head & Shoulders, Tide, Gillette, Secret, Old Spice, Pampers and Duracell.

“Some of these spots did a better job of connecting with viewers than others. Secret’s ‘She Fell Down and Got Back Up’ (Ace Score: 571) soared 28 percent above the category norm and demonstrates the power of great creative, earning a 673 with the younger female demographic,” Daboll commented.

Cumulatively, P&G aired more than 40 pieces of creative and earned an average Ace Score of 547.

Nike’s “Find Your Greatness” Ran Hot then Cold

Team USA Sponsor Nike ran more than a dozen different ads in their “Find Your Greatness” campaign. The first ad, entitled “Find Your Greatness” (618 Ace Score), was the highest scoring Nike ad to date and scored 28 percent above the category norm placing it on the top 10 list of Olympic sponsor ads.

“The long-form ‘Find Your Greatness’ ad was undeniably effective at delivering the campaign’s intended message – that greatness is within all of us. This ad’s Information, Relevance and Attention scores soared,” said Daboll.

Unprompted verbatim responses for the initial “Find Your Greatness” ad confirm the ad’s ability to connect with its broad Olympic audience, with 10 percent of respondents using the word “inspiring” and 8 percent mentioning the Nike brand in a positive context:

“Interesting, intriguing, and inspiring. Grabbed my attention from beginning to end. Authentic, creative and memorable…”(Male, 21-35 >75K, African American, No children, South)

“This was a wonderfully inspiring commercial; it really lifted my spirits as I am sure it will do for others.” (female, 36-49, 40-75K, Caucasian, Children, Northeast)

However, following the initial 60-second spot, Nike aired another 13 short-form ads where the message became fragmented and confusing to viewers. Nike’s campaign overall failed to earn a medal with four of the pieces scoring at or below category norm and all but the first scored below Nike’s brand average.

Girl Power

The extraordinary performance of American women at the Olympic games has been well documented at this point–taking home 29 gold medals vs. the men’s 15. Interestingly, this female dominated Olympic year extended to the advertising. Looking at the top 100 ads that told the Olympic stories of hope and inspiration, trial and tribulation we find that women scored those ads almost 30 points or 5% higher than their male counterparts. The biggest gender differences occurred in the following ads– all favored by women, and interestingly all P&G brands. While some ads are apparent, such as Cover Girl and Secret, virtually all of the corporate ads skewed heavily toward females – a mark of great creative in that it does not alienate the broad demographic but strongly resonates with the true target.

Ads with the Largest Female Bias

Note: Brand, Category, and Industry norms are based on a rolling 90 day calculation of all scored ads.

About Ace Metrix

Ace Metrix® is the new standard in television and video analytics, dedicated to delivering better, faster, and more cost-effective solutions for evaluating video advertising within competitive context. Through the Ace Metrix LIVE™ platform, companies can now access timely, actionable data wherever, whenever they need to, enabling real-time advertising campaign optimization. Combining leading edge technology and patent pending methodology, Ace Metrix is revolutionizing the way marketers measure themselves and their competitive landscape. The company is privately held and is backed by leading venture capital firms and industry leaders including Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Palomar Ventures, Leapfrog Ventures, and WPP.

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