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WE Communications UK
UK team of global integrated communications agency @WEcomms

Super Bowl 50: Broncos vs. Panthers or Peyton Manning vs. Dogs?

It’s that single day of the year when we wouldn’t dream of “fast forwarding” through the commercials. But we manage to hit “pause” on talks of Trump, Hillary, Bernie and all things “primaries.” And Americans sit glued to their televisions while ingesting record-breaking doses of pizza, wings, guacamole and chili.

The Lombardi trophy is on the line. The Cannes Lions might as well be, too. The competition is stiff — both on the field and off. It’s Super Bowl Sunday, in its 50th glorious year.

The outcome? Peyton Manning won the Super Bowl for the Broncos. But did he win it for Budweiser, too, in “overtime?”

The Super Bowl MVP and the Super Bowl of advertising: Both are equally and hotly debated among water cooler conversations — and social media chatter — come Monday. When it comes to the Super Bowl spots, I’m a summarizer. I can’t resist the uncontrollable urge to sum it all up: “This was the year of … [X].”

As I watched, I experienced flashes of, “I wonder if this will be the year of … [creepy baby ads, app ads, irreverent-use-of-celebrity spots, auto ads, cute, funny, take-a-stand spots, rookie advertisers, traditional heavy weight advertisers, tributes, furry friend ads, and ads that put our most revolting biological functions on a national — and international — “stage”].

And then I look at the data. Our data. The WE Communications Brand Agility Index — honing the agility of brands in their social and digital communications in paid, earned and owned media. We go nerdy into measures that ultimately effect a brand’s impact during key communications milestones like Super Bowl 50. Relevance, Differentiation, Scalability, sheer Volume, Personalization, Sentiment Reaction, Engagement and plenty more. And here’s what we found:

  • Pre-Game Matters. Many brands, like Bud Light and T-Mobile, gave audiences a sneak peek of Super Bowl antics to come this year — this year’s spots were viewed more than 350 million times before Super Bowl Sunday. Pokémon’s first-ever Big Game ad released a full two weeks before the Super Bowl and amassed more 15.8 million views leading up to Sunday. T-Mobile poised itself for a game day victory by strategically setting the Super Bowl stage with its Drake “Hotline Bling” Uncarrier spot, and earned extra points with its Steve Harvey #ballogize spots, winning pre-game Conversation, Engagement and Differentiation.
  • Quality vs. Quantity. Does the brand with the most $5 million Super Bowl spots win? Does the brand driving the most viewer and media reactions win? Age old questions. Mountain Dew’s “puppymonkeybaby” and Doritos’ spot, featuring a fetus, er, reaching for one of those notorious orange chips drew mass volume of consumer reaction during the game. Both Pepsi Co. darlings wouldn’t settle for just one coveted Super Bowl ad spot. And both brands earned mixed reactions, to put it mildly. The Doritos Ultrasound spot eliciting responses ranging from “OMG, Doritos, wtf?” to “Doritos for the WIN!” to a roaring pro-choice/pro-life debate. Wrap this around Doritos’ “Crash the Superbowl” consumer contest, awarding canine commercial co-stars as the designated winners and … does it all translate to noise rivaling that in Levi’s Stadium? Yes. High marks for Reaction and Engagement. Does it translate to positive brand perceptions and sales? Debatable.
  • The Celebrity Circus. Brands trotted out many a “show pony” this year: from Amy Schumer and Seth Rogen to Alec Baldwin and Missy Elliott, Stephen Tyler to Helen Mirren, Liam Neeson to Christopher Walken to Ryan Reynolds and myriad others, brands inevitably bank on star power to score Super Bowl ad points year after year. The result: high volumes of YouTube spot views; low social media Volume, Engagement and Conversation. The exception: Pepsi’s redux of the legendary Cindy Crawford Super Bowl spot with James Corden. Wow and wow.
  • The Right Time. The Right Place. There you are, face full of chips and guacamole, enjoying a lighthearted day of football with friends and family and then it happens: that inevitable spot that causes your head to tilt, your plate of food to slowly descend. And then you wonder: Are constipation, irritable bowel syndrome and toenail fungus national epidemics? Because why else would you advertise to an audience of nearly 112 million people on a day like today? The result: more than $130 million spent on prescription drug advertisements during NFL broadcasts in the U.S. this football season; less than 1,000 Super Bowl-related social media posts that mentioned Jublia, Valeant or AstraZeneca combined.
  • Are Cats (, Sheep, Clydesdales) and Dogs for the Birds? No. No, they are not. Whether you want to admit it or not, we have fallen for it again this year. Last year, Budweiser did it best. This year: Heinz stole the show with them. Doritos played that card quite well, too. What is it? Dogs. They just melt our icy Internet hearts. The “Weiner Stampede” Heinz spot resulted in high marks for Originality, Scalability, Differentiation, Standout, Engagement and overall social conversation. We ring in the Year of the Monkey, yet Super Bowl 50 would indicate that it’s the Year of the Dog.
  • Post-Game BOOM. The last Super Bowl spot aired. The Lombardi was handed over. And the words, “well, that’s a wrap” rolled off my tongue … and then it happened. In Tracy Wolfson’s post-game interview, Peyton Manning said that he would “drink a lot of Budweiser” to celebrate the Denver Broncos’ win at Super Bowl 50. Not once, but twice. And the social media chatter exploded. The sentiment: highly mixed. Budweiser’s response: to tweet that Manning was not paid for the mentions. Which brings me to — what else? — my inevitable urge to summarize it all.

The Bottom Line Is Beyond the End Zone. There are as many ways to cut the Super Bowl spot winners as the day is long. We look at many measures of success in evaluating pre-game and game-time brand agility. But the question that lingers and truly matters most is: What will these brands do to take what they achieved at the Super Bowl and extend the brand conversation? That’s where WE like to step in.

by Jennifer Archer, WE Communications