Super Bowl Ads: Why They’re Great

Investigating the structure of successful Super Bowl ads

For marketing and advertising geeks like myself, the Super Bowl is just as much about the football as it is the advertisements. Every year, I look forward to seeing brands pulling out all the stops and working their genius. This year, $5 million bought 30 seconds of air time, so the stakes were high.

Unfortunately, I felt a little let down — Budweiser ditched their emotional puppy and ponies, Doritos made us cringe, and Mountain Dew Kickstart…there were no words. All in all, this year’s ads were a bit of a wash.

So why did Super Bowl ads flop this year? What constitutes a successful ad?

Let’s first examine Audi’s prom commercial — a very successful Super Bowl ad from 2013.

Everybody loves this ad — it’s relatable and makes us feel triumphant, excited, and rebellious. It expertly manipulates our emotions with humor.

The ad follows classic narrative structure closely. The exposition shows the background — a boy with a loving, realistic family is going to prom alone. The rising action includes his dad giving him the Audi to drive and him slowly becoming more and more confident. He gains enough courage thanks to his amazing car to kiss the prom queen. The climax isn’t technically shown, but it’s implied — he gets punched in the face by the prom king. The falling action includes him driving away triumphantly in his awesome car.

The commercial plays with our heartstrings and gives us that warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from watching the underdog finally win.

Let’s examine another ad that doesn’t necessarily follow the classic narrative structure — Oreo’s Whisper Fight commercial.

Goofy, ridiculous, silly. This ad doesn’t really have an exposition, rising action, climax, or resolution. It’s just a silly ad designed to make people laugh and get people talking.

If you had to identify these parts, you could say that the exposition is the guys in the library, rising action was them talking about the Oreos, climax was flipping the table and all of the action to come after. However, there’s no identifiable falling action or resolution.

Now, comparing the two ads we’ve discussed, they were both very successful. More people are likely to share a commercial that resonates with them on an emotional level, like Audi’s prom commercial. However, some people love the lighter, more humorous ads like Oreo’s ad. Audi definitely had a stronger narrative, but Oreo’s commercial was more attention-grabbing. Each person measures a successful advertisement differently, but I personally preferred Audi’s substantial storytelling versus Oreo’s goofiness.