Ace Metrix Announces Top 25 Most-Liked Super Bowl Ads of the Past Five Years

Budweiser and Doritos Dominate List of Last Five Years’ Most-Liked Super Bowl Ads; Automotive Represents the Biggest Category; Ads Improve—and Lengthen—Over Time

LOS ANGELES – Ace Metrix®, the leader in measuring the impact of video advertising, released the 25 most-liked Super Bowl ads of the last five years. Budweiser dominates the list, producing six of the top ads, including the top three overall. Led by its 2014 60-second “Puppy Love” ad with a Likeability score of 8311, the brand’s 2013 “Brotherhood” (804) and 2015 “Lost Dog” (802) closely follow.

@Ace_Metrix Announces Top 25 Most-Liked Super Bowl Ads of the Past Five Years

“The King of Beers has earned another crown by becoming the King of Super Bowl advertising through the creation of ads that so effectively appeal to the largest, most demographically diverse TV audience in the world,” said Peter Daboll, CEO of Ace Metrix. “As Super Bowl ads have evolved in tone, length and appeal from some of the iconic ads of yesteryear, comparing ads from the last half decade to those older legends is no longer apples-to-apples. Brands today have to think about the life of their ad prior to and beyond television with the proliferation of digital distribution and social media.”

Doritos followed Budweiser with five of the most likeable ads of the last five years. The brand’s groundbreaking “Crash the Super Bowl” contest, entering its tenth and final year, gave validity to crowdsourcing ads and has produced Super Bowl success year after year. Interestingly, the top likeability scorer from the contest was 2012’s “Slingbaby” (785), with ads from 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2015 making the list of most-liked ads.

The automotive category, a perennial top Super Bowl spender, had four ads on the list from brands Toyota, Bridgestone, Mercedes and Bridgestone. Other categories with multiple ads on the list include candy, represented by M&Ms and Snickers, and soda, with one from Coca-Cola and two from Pepsi.

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1 The Likeability Score is one component of the overall Ace Score, which is the measure of ad creative effectiveness based on viewer reaction to national TV and online video ads, providing the advertising industry an unbiased resource to measure creative impact. The results are presented on a scale of 1–950. More information about the Ace Score and research methodology can be found below.

“Every advertiser on this list should be highly commended for achieving creative gold and shaping the future of advertising,” Daboll commented.

Top 25 Most Liked Super Bowl Ads, 2011-2015:

Rank Brand Ad Title Ad Length Super Bowl Year Likeability Score
1 Budweiser

Puppy Love

0:60 2014 821
2 Budweiser

Brotherhood

0:60 2013 804
3 Budweiser

Lost Dog

0:60 2015 802
4 Doritos

Slingbaby

0:30 2012 785
5 Coca-Cola

The Catch

0:60 2012 782
6 Budweiser

Hero’s Welcome

0:60 2014 781
7 Microsoft

Empowering

0:60 2014 777
8 Bud Light

Rescue Dog

0:60 2012 773
9 Doritos

Pug Attack

0:30 2011 771
10 M&M’s

Just My Shell

0:30 2012 768
11 McDonald’s

Pay With Lovin’

0:60 2015 759
11 Doritos

When Pigs Fly

0:30 2015 759
13 Toyota

Joy Ride

0:60 2014 758
14 Doritos

Man’s Best Friend

0:30 2012 755
15 Bridgestone Tires

Carma

0:30 2011 753
16 Doritos

Goat 4 Sale

0:30 2013 752
17 Snickers

The Brady Bunch

0:30 2015 748
18 Pepsi Max

Love Hurts

0:30 2011 747
19 Got Milk

Morning Run

0:30 2013 746
20 Mercedes Benz

Fable

0:60 2015 744
21 Microsoft

Braylon O’Neill

0:60 2015 743
21 Bud Light

Dog Sitting

0:30 2011 743
23 RadioShack

Good Bye ’80s

0:30 2014 742
23 Volkswagen

The Force

0:60 2011 742
25 Pepsi Max

Torpedo Cooler

0:30 2011 741

Super Bowl Ads Are Getting Longer. And Better.

Over the last five years, Super Bowl ads have become progressively longer, as well as more effective. In 2011, twenty percent of Super Bowl ads were 60 seconds or longer, and the average Likeability score was 649. In 2015, 43 percent were longer than 60 seconds, and the average Likeability score was 659. During the same period, the average overall Ace Score jumped from 568 to 613, giving credence to the concept that longer story arcs can be more attention-grabbing and effective. On the most-liked list, nearly half of the ads are 60 seconds.

Super Bowl Themes are Changing

The most-liked ad list demonstrates the overwhelming shift from humor to inspiration, sentimentality, and patriotism that we’ve seen over the past five years. The span of 2011 to 2015 saw a 13 percent decrease in the use of humor in ads and a 19 percent increase in the use of inspirational messaging. Microsoft’s two ads, 2014’s “Empowering” and 2015’s “Braylon O’Neill” are prime examples, as is Budweiser’s 2014 salute to veterans, “Hero’s Welcome,” which demonstrates a shift to ads appealing to national pride.

The Super Bowl’s Digital Expansion, 2011-2015

In the course of the past five years, more and more brands are using their Super Bowl ads as part of an overall event, rather than a “one-and-done” investment. The number of ads released ahead of time, either on social media or through teasers, has gone from 8 percent in 2011 to 61 percent in 2015. Additionally, the number of ads that include a social component within their message has gone from 8 percent to 51 percent over the same period.

Ace Metrix and the Super Bowl

Since 2010, Ace Metrix has analyzed all TV ads that have run during the Super Bowl. Ace Metrix CEO Peter Daboll, one of the foremost experts on Super Bowl advertising and author of “Ad-itude: Using Data to Inspire Extraordinary Ad Creative,” is available for interviews about Super Bowl ads. Chapter 12 of “Ad-itude” entitled “Super Super Bowl Ads” is available for a limited time here. For an interview or information about past or present Super Bowl ads, please contact us.

About the Ace Score

The Ace Score is the measure of ad creative effectiveness based on viewer reaction to national TV and online video ads, providing the advertising industry an unbiased resource to measure creative impact. Ace Metrix scores every national television and the majority of digital video ads, across 96 categories creating a complete comparative database—Ace Metrix LIVE®. A unique panel of at least 500 consumers, representative of the U.S. TV and Internet viewing audience, scores each ad in the exact same manner. The results are presented on a scale of 1–950, which represents scoring on creative attributes such as Persuasion, Likeability, Information, Attention, Change, Relevance, Desire and Watchability. Ace Metrix applies a natural language processing algorithm to the hundreds of qualitative verbatim responses collected for each ad, deriving a score that indicates positive, negative or neutral emotional impact and represents the ad’s position on an Emotional Sentiment Index ranging from 1–100.

About Ace Metrix

Ace Metrix® provides technology, tools and insights that enable the advertising ecosystem to understand how and why video creative works with viewers. Advertisers, agencies and publishers rely on Ace Metrix to provide qualitative and quantitative measures, normative data and competitive insights that inform each phase of the creative lifecycle, resulting in advertising that consistently delivers results. The Company’s comprehensive suite of tools map to ad objectives, including the creative impact of persuasion, breakthrough, emotional connection, and indicators of shareability. 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.

Follow Ace Metrix on Twitter for sustained insight: @Ace_Metrix.

Note: Ace Metrix®, the Ace Metrix logo design, Ace Score®, Ace Metrix LIVE® and Creative Lifecycle Management® are registered trademarks of Ace Metrix, Inc. Other trademarks are property of their respective owners

via BusinessWire