Doritos and Its Dogs Create Most Likeable Ad in Its Final Year of Crashing the Super Bowl, According to Ace Metrix

Ad Duration Much Shorter This Year; Automotive Brands Continue to Impress

LOS ANGELES – In a year that relied heavily on celebrity endorsements and shorter ads, light-hearted humor and animals were common ingredients to some of the most likeable Super Bowl ads of 2016, according to Ace Metrix, the leader in measuring the impact of video advertising. Doritos, which ended its 10-year “Crash the Super Bowl” campaign on a high note, leads the list of most likeable ads with “No Dogs Allowed.” Honda’s “A New Truck to Love” ad starring singing sheep joins Audi’s “Commander” as the top non-luxury and luxury automotive ads of the Super Bowl, respectively. The stark difference in the tone of these two ads—from whimsical to more dramatic– is representative of the overall thematic mixed bag that is the Super Bowl ads of 2016.

@Doritos and its Dogs Create Most Likeable Ad in Its Final Year of Crashing the Super Bowl #SB50 #SuperBowlAds

“In years past, we’ve been able to identify a common trend among Super Bowl ads. Last year, emotional manipulation ruled. Five years before, it was slap-stick comedy. If anything, Super Bowl 2016 was the year of risk aversion and caution. With the exception of Audi’s “Commander” ad, the iconic story-telling that the Super Bowl has always been known for was virtually abandoned by many brands this year. With only 28 percent of ads running over a minute– versus 43 percent in 2015– brands pivoted away from spending big bucks on longer ads during the game in favor of shorter, safer ads that were book-ended, in many cases, by more daring executions before and after kick-off,” said Peter Daboll, CEO of Ace Metrix. “The teasers for Amazon’s #BaldwinBowl, the post-game sequel to Toyota Prius’ “The Chase,” and Hyundai’s pre-game creative are great examples of this.”

Celebrities Present and Accounted for and Animals Hold Court

Forty two percent of this year’s Super Bowl ads starred celebrities (vs. an average of 33 percent over the last six years), with Anthony Hopkins (for TurboTax), Liam Neeson (for LG) and Willem Dafoe (for Snickers) representing the top celebrity performers. Consumers rewarded Amazon’s maiden voyage in Super Bowl advertising with an impressive overall Ace Score of 620, successfully raising awareness of the Amazon Echo. If Superheroes count as celebrities, Coca-Cola won major likeability points through its use of Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and the Hulk. Hyundai’s “Ryanville” starring Ryan Reynolds earned an admirable breakthrough score, led by its ability to grab attention.

Animals, often a safer, less expensive advertising bet, continued their popularity in Super Bowl 50, proving far more prevalent this year than babies and kids and present in six of the ten most likeable Super Bowl ads. Number One-ranked Doritos “No Dogs Allowed,” is joined by Honda’s singing sheep in “A New Truck to Love” and Heinz’s charging dachshunds in “Wiener Stampede,” rounding out the Top 10 most likeable ads. Mountain Dew’s combination of animals in #PuppyMonkeyBaby, however, while attention-grabbing was off-putting to consumers who ranked it near the bottom of the list with an Ace Score of 457.

*Definition: 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. Likeability is a key measurement for the large and diverse Super Bowl audience who can like an ad for many different reasons. The results are presented on a scale of 1–950. More information about the Ace Score and research methodology can be found below.This list represents the top 10 Super Bowl ads by Likeability. The list is based on ads to have debuted during the beginning of Super Bowl game play through the final whistle on February 7, 2016.

Many top Ads have Big Visual Impact; Tones Vary

Newcomers Paypal.com and LG relied on high impact visuals to win over the massive Super Bowl audience to become two of the most liked ads, while Colgate and Audi took on more serious tones—Colgate in its cause-based promotion of water conservation and Audi in “Commander,” the single story-telling ad in the Top 10. The decrease of longer-form ads (60 seconds and more), which have been trending up over the last five years, contributed to the dearth of story-telling ads this year and up-tick in more direct light-hearted or product-focused ads.

“Marketers took a more cautious tone, both in terms of shorter (less costly) units as well as the content,” Daboll commented. “The move to 30 seconds also paved the way for more celebrity use, who have instant recognition. This could be a first step in the Super Bowl becoming more about ROI than just pure reach — that selling product is as important as a favorable brand association.”

For historical Super Bowl ad information, facts and figures, please visit: http://www.acemetrix.com.

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® is the 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 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.

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. Other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

via BusinessWire