Super Bowl Viewers Yawn At Dot-com Ads
http://www.adweek.com/daily/February/aw/aw022000-1.asp
By Mallorre Dill and Eleftheria Parpis
With Super Bowl XXIV commercials commanding more than $2 million per 30 seconds, viewers pinned to the game were treated to a bevy of dot-com advertisers who hoped to make a grand super bowl splash.
But according to the results of a national consumer telephone poll, commissioned by Adweek and conducted yesterday by Opinion Research Corp., consumers were most impressed by tried-and-true-beer, soda and animal stories.
Budweiser beer and Pepsico’s Mountain Dew soda topped the list of most memorable and most liked commercials in this year’s game, while most of the Internet advertisers failed to rise above the din. Of the 417 people surveyed, 63% were able to recall a brand that they had seen advertised on the Super Bowl, with Budweiser’s eight spots scoring the highest in both recall and likeability.
Although 18 of the 55 Super Bowl spots advertised dot-coms, only 36% of the viewers polled could recall an Internet brand. E*Trade topped the list.
The overall favorite, Budweiser’s “Rex,” created by DDB, Chicago, shows a dog on a movie set struggling to emote sadness. The actor finally feels the moment and howls after he recalls a day when he ran after Bud truck but collided with a lawn supplies truck instead. Mountain Dew’s ad, featuring a “dew dude” reclaiming his drink from the throat of a Cheetah, came in second.
One of E*trade’s ads, featuring a chimp clapping and tapping his feet to the rhythms of Latin music, garnered mixed reviews. It was third on the list as most favored – and first on the list of least liked – ads. First-time advertiser Computer.com, which debuted its services with testimonials of friends and relatives of the company in a home-video-style spot, was the second least liked.
More complete survey results are scheduled for Adweek’s Feb. 7 editions.