Study Suggests Super Bowl Advertisements with Serious Overtones Do Not Engage with Viewers
Data from Innerscope Research shows audiences increasingly embrace complex storylines, but do not engage highly with ads conveying more serious, harder messages
BOSTON, Feb. 2, 2015 – The evolution of Super Bowl advertising continued on Sunday with brands delivering increasingly complex stories, but results suggest that audiences want the game to serve as an escape from daily realities and aren’t ready for more serious advertising.
Innerscope Research, a Boston-based integrated consumer neuroscience company, conducted its eighth study of the game’s advertising on Sunday night and found that, on the whole, audiences were highly emotionally engaged with spots that delivered softer themes, but were significantly less engaged with creative that was more serious or thought provoking.
The top third of Innerscope’s ranking featured spots focused on soft, heartwarming messages, humor and celebrities. None of the spots with more serious overtones appeared in Innerscope’s top third.
In further proof that the game’s advertising, and its audience, has evolved, there wasn’t a single scantily-clad woman nor prominently featured beer bottle – once staples of the game’s advertising – featured in any of the ads in the top half of Innerscope’s ranking.
“We’ve seen a remarkable transformation in the game’s advertising over the last several years, but it’s clear that consumers are only ready to go so far,” said Dr. Carl Marci, Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer for Innerscope Research. “Advertising may be central to this extravaganza, but the event remains a platform for fun, friends, and sports passion – one that consumers don’t want to be interrupted by the seriousness of daily life.”
Innerscope biometrically monitored 40 participants using state of the art technology to capture fluctuations in heart rate, skin conductance, and breathing patterns. These signals comprise the measures of core emotional response, which is critical to advertisers since emotions trigger the memory centers of the brain – where these events are tagged and stored for later retrieval.
Participants registered high emotional engagement with a range of thematic spots:
• Dove Men+Care “Real Strength” and Toyota “My Bold Dad” captured fathers as heroes, contrasting a former, common theme of dad as buffoon.
• Budweiser’s “Lost Dog” continued run of success with stories about puppies.
• Snickers “Very Brady,” Kia “The Perfect Getaway” and Nationwide “Invisible” effectively integrated humor, celebrities and familiar stories.
At the same time, participants did not register high emotional engagement with several ads that pursued more serious tones. Among those:
• Public Service Announcements from Nationwide, “Boy” about child safety, and from the Joyful Heart Foundation, “Listen” about domestic violence, didn’t crack Innerscope’s top third.
• Microsoft’s stories of inspirational, and inspiring, children – “Estella” and Braylon” – failed to break into the top half.
• Always’ “Like a Girl” pursued a message of empowerment, but the spot ranked in Innerscope’s bottom third, suggesting that the audience felt they were being preached to.
• Jublia’s “Tackle It,” which was the lowest performing ad in our ranking, presented a message that seemed most detached from the game.
“The Super Bowl has evolved to a stage where there are opportunities to engage a vast and diverse audience with various messages,” Dr. Marci said. “But at nearly $4.5 million per 30 seconds, this year’s data clearly demonstrates that brands need to consider the context. Those that will be most successful understand where to draw the line in order to fit within the narrative of a football game.”
About Innerscope Research
Innerscope Research, Inc. is the leader in integrated consumer neuroscience, delivering unprecedented understanding of consumer behavior that helps brands to build deeper connections and optimize product and communication performance. Using the latest technological advances in biometrics, neurometrics and psychometrics, which can be integrated with self-report, Innerscope measures and analyzes moment-by-moment conscious and non-conscious responses to media and packaging, providing marketers with critical insight into consumers’ decision making. Founded in 2006 by Harvard and MIT scientists, Innerscope has been recognized with ARF Innovation, Rising Star and Great Minds Awards, ESOMAR’s Best Presentation Award, and as a 2013 EXPLOR award finalist at IIR’s TMRE. For more information, visit Innerscope on Twitter and LinkedIn.