RSSThe Psychology of Super Bowl Ads
February 4th, 2008 | View Comments
At a recent conference, I heard an analysis of last year’s Super Bowl ads and the myriad ways they fail because they violate basic tenets of human psychology. Advertisers focused on making the ad memorable and forgot to make the brand memorable.
Advertisers still haven’t learned.
I Can’t Remember What You Advertised
You remember something better if it’s repeated or if you’ve had time to process the information more deeply. Thus, all those ads that have nothing to do with the product until the last few seconds? FAIL. And if it’s a lesser-known brand, chances are good that you’ll have DOUBLE FAIL because people are likely to mis-remember the ad as being for a more famous brand (more famous brand names are more easily retrieved from memory).
There was an ad for some vitamin water that featured a bunch of lizards dancing to “Thriller.” I have no idea what brand of water it was (Google tells me it was Sobe Life Water), so for me, it wound up being an ad for Michael Jackson. And Wade Robson.
Your Advertisement Made Me Recoil
I’m guessing advertisers don’t want to create negative associations with their products either, because that hardly makes people buy. There’s the gross-out (the projectile vomiting baby from E-Trade came close, but everything else was so good, I can forgive it), and then there’s the downright offensive. The ads from Salesgenie fit into this category. Why stop at unfunny and badly written when you can go for broke with unflattering racial sterotypes?
I Can’t Remember What You Advertised, Except that it Made Me Recoil
And then the double whammy. It was an ad for some kind of (energy?) drink, I remember that much. It comes in a green can. Again, we have the ad failing to focus on the actual product. Instead, it focused on a very unattractive man gyrating with jump cables clipped to his nipples. Sex sells (see: Victoria’s Secret)… this makes me throw up in my mouth a little. You’re not doing well when your ad is more vomitrocious than the ad that featured actual vomit.
Best Ad
The Fedex ad with the giant pigeons was pretty good as was the Coke chase (the room was overwhelmingly for Stewie), but I think the winner is the Doritos ad with the mousetrap. Not only did the ad focus on the actual product, the punchline (hah!) with the giant mouse made it memorable.
Of course none of this addresses my main Super Bowl curiosity: when will a female be allowed to do the Halftime Show again? Or hell, a male under forty?
Finally, I would like to thank Eli Manning and crew for coming through for the Patriots haters. I promise never to refer to you as Lesser Manning or Manning the Inferior again.
Yvonne posted this on February 4th, 2008 @ 12:11am in Psychology/Neuroscience, Sports/Fitness, TV Shows | Permalink to "The Psychology of Super Bowl Ads"
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2. Rob » February 4th, 2008 at 8:09 am
Amp worked, but then again, I know that an ampere is the measure of how much electric current there is. The guy drinking it and powering electric equipment was actually memorable, but only if you have 5th grade science knowledge.
Honestly, most people don’t remember their 5th grade science. I suspect the drink was actually aimed at the group that does. Still not sure if the ad works.
For the other drink, Sobe has been using lizards to brand their product for a while now — there’s a lizard silhouette on the bottles. I knew immediately that it was Sobe, but then again, I tend to note branding. That might be something like knowing what an amp is, though. There were two different commercials, so lizard and water are linked pretty well.
All the commercials were aimed at me, I guess.
3. Ryan » February 4th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
I also saw the Sobe logo before the Thriller dance started, so I at least knew what the brand was from the start. But for what it’s worth everyone else in the room was going “Huh?” and “It must be Geico…” before I said “No, it’s Sobe.”
And yes, the Amp ad was disturbing, but it made sense to me, what with the electricity and the music.
As for the E-Trade: I laughed when the baby spit up and every female in the room went “Ewwww!” and my one friend who works in advertising (also female) said “I can’t believe E-Trade approved that!” So that one could’ve been pretty demographic-specific. (Of course this isn’t a very good sample size as I was the only male in the room at the time.)
4. Solution: Generosity » CogKnition » February 7th, 2008 at 2:54 am
[…] got this far during the Super Bowl and an episode of American Gladiators. From here on out, it’s all stockinette, […]
5. Lisa's Chaos » February 11th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
I actually liked the stupid guy dancing trying to jump start the car. nuts! Amp.
1. Paul » February 4th, 2008 at 1:07 am
I thought the Doritos mousetrap ad was the best. It had a great surprise twist and a low-budget style that made it stand out from the crowd — cheap mouse costume with the seams showing instead of the CGI everyone else had. The final shot of the mouse beating up on the guy was great.
The Thriller ad confused everyone at the party I was at and some still think it was a Geico ad.
Sorry to see the Pats lose but they were certainly outplayed and still almost won somehow.