The Most Impactful Super Bowl Ads
When brands advertise during the Super Bowl, it’s important to keep in mind that they can have varying objectives. Many are focused on building or reinforcing brand awareness, and/or general brand associations. Others may be trying to communicate a more specific message or characteristic that is important to differentiate their brand.
Given these different objectives, it’s not always helpful to evaluate all ads based on the same criteria. Some ads that grab attention and are memorable, often through humor, may be considered among the “best” Super Bowl ads when building brand awareness is a priority, but those same ads may not be deemed as effective if communicating a specific message was one of the primary brand goals. Given this distinction, our team has evaluated this year’s ads based on two different types of priorities.
HawkPartners usually asks our Partners to evaluate the Super Bowl ads based on traditional strategic marketing criteria (attention getting, memorable, clear, persuasive, etc.), and we’ve done so again this year. However, we’ve recently developed a proprietary method specifically to evaluate the effectiveness of a brand’s messages, so we’ve also added an alternative perspective for evaluating this year’s ads, focusing on whether each Super Bowl ad effectively communicates a message that will have lasting “Resonance.”
Message Resonance
At HawkPartners, we help clients understand how their ads will or do perform holistically and fit (or don’t) into a broader strategic communications plan. In this context, there is often a difference between messages that are impactful, and messages that truly resonate. While impactful messages might capture attention in the moment, resonant messages work across channels, campaigns and customer experiences to forge a deeper, more enduring connection with consumers. This concept, known as Message Resonance, is defined as a message’s ability to influence the opinion of a brand and its products over time.
Through our Message Resonance & Impact initiative, we’ve identified three core characteristics, or Building Blocks, that are the most essential for creating messages that resonate with consumers:
- Meets a Need
- Connects Emotionally
- Speaks the Consumer’s Language
There are three additional characteristics that create resonant messages as well, particularly in advertising:
- Is Hopeful
- Is Believable
- Is Clear
The implication of this learning is that ads that incorporate specific messages which rate highly on these criteria are going to be the most effective at generating deep, meaningful and lasting brand connections.
The “Best” Super Bowl Ads – Overall
Instacart
While many ads focused on celebrities, Instacart let the brand mascots take center stage, some of which harkened back to past Super Bowl ads (Mountain Dew ‘Puppy-Baby-Monkey’ and Old Spice ‘Man You Could Smell Like’) in emphasizing the sheer breadth of options they can deliver to your doorstep.
Uber Eats
Uber Eats has been building toward this NFL food conspiracy ad and paid it off well with savvy use of celebrities (including Sean Evans of The Hot Ones and a baffled Greta Gerwig), reflecting the history of the NFL as well as enhancing Uber’s brand association with food.
NIKE
While humor drives memorability, a close second is inspiration, and Nike delivered just that, an inspirational brand message (shot in stunning black and white backed by Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love) about women’s empowerment in the face of negativism by highlighting some of the most dominant athletes of the last year.
Ads with the Greatest Message Resonance
We also evaluated this year’s Super Bowl Ads more specifically against our Message Resonance Building Blocks, and based on these criteria here are the ads that, in our opinion, communicated the most Resonant Messages:
Google (Google Pixel & Gemini Live)
Why the Message Resonates:
- Connects Emotionally
- Meets a Need
- Is Believable
For the past several years, one of the primary concerns with AI has been the lack of human connection. Google set out to inject humanity into AI and to position Gemini as a partner in life’s most important moments. It connected emotionally and helped consumers see how they can incorporate Gemini into their lives, adding credibility and believability to their ground-breaking AI tool.
Liquid Death
Why the Message Resonates:
- Speaks the Consumer’s Language
- Is Clear
- Is Believable
Liquid Death disrupted the water industry when it came on the scene several years ago with its edgy design, temperature-preserving can and adding personality to a relatively stagnant category. Their message last night resonated as it built on what consumers already thought of the brand and speaks directly to consumers with the idea of drinking water in some of the highest-pressure jobs.
Nike
Why the Message Resonates:
- Connects Emotionally
- Speaks the Consumer’s Language
- Is Clear
Nike did a great job highlighting its message of equality and performance in sports and capitalizing on a unique moment in time with the rise of women’s sports. The message resonates by taking a clear position on something consumers feel increasingly strongly about while daring anyone to push back. Of course, some on social media did push back, only reinforcing the message Nike was making and helping it resonate even more.
Takeaways
It’s a bit disappointing that Nike was one of only a few brands that could meet the dual objective of being appealing and memorable while also communicating a meaningful, enduring message. While it’s not necessarily surprising that the same ads, other than Nike, were not at the top of each list (since each is focused on a different objective), and admittedly there’s only so much that can be achieved in a 30-second ad, but at $7 million per ad, one would hope that more brands would rise to the occasion.