Budweiser, Domestic Violence PSA Lead Best-Viewed Super Bowl Ads

As with other Super Bowl advertising, sentimentality and strong emotional content were big drivers of highly viewed advertising content.

A commercial featuring a lost dog — to be found and helped by horses — led Budweiser to the top viewing spot, according to TiVo’s second-by-second analysis.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was a public service announcement about domestic violence from the Joyful Heart Foundation, which was the second-best-viewed Super Bowl commercial.

The spot portrayed a home in disarray — showing poorly patched holes in walls with no pictures, disheveled furniture, and a woman dialing 911 under the guise of ordering a pizza.

The Coca-Cola spot “Make It Happy,” about transforming hateful Internet talk, came in at 9th place. In 10th place was a Nissan commercial “With Dad,” focused on a Nissan race car driver and the angst and frustrations of juggling a career and his family with the Harry Chapin song “Cat’s In the Cradle” running as the soundtrack.

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The other best-viewed spots in order (third to eighth place) were: Doritos, “Middle Seat”; Nationwide Insurance, “Invisible Mindy Kaling”; Supercell, “Clash of Clans 'Revenge' Feat with Liam Neeson”; Fiat 500X,“Blue Pill”; Snickers, “‘The Brady Bunch' featuring Danny Trejo”; and Avocados From Mexico, “First Draft Ever.”

A major category was movies — where some eights spot ran, more than in the past two years combined. NBC, which aired the game, had five of the eight spots coming from Universal Pictures — “Jurassic World,” “Minions,” “Furious 7,”  “Fifty Shades of Grey” and “Ted 2.” Other movies include Walt Disney’s “Tomorrowland,”  “Perfect Pitch 2,” and Paramount’s “Terminator: Genisys.”

There were also two movie spots before the game: Liongate’s “The Divergence Series: Insurgent” and 20th Century Fox’s “Kingsman: The Secret Service.” Another big category insurance — five spots — the combined total of the three prior Super Bowls.

By TiVo’s count NBC aired 27 promos, Fox’s 28, in 2014. NBC aired 23 60-second spots; Fox had 20 the year before.

TiVo’s research of Super Bowl analysis come from second-by-second audience data from approximately 30,000 anonymous TV homes.

2 comments about "Budweiser, Domestic Violence PSA Lead Best-Viewed Super Bowl Ads".
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  1. David Hoo from Effective Marketing Management, February 2, 2015 at 6:12 p.m.

    What exactly does TiVo's second-by-second audience data measure?

    Is it merely that the TV was tuned into the Super Bowl when these ads were exposed? Or does it measure whether any humans were present within a viewing line of sight when the commercials were exposed? Can it measure who was viewing the TV?

    Do the audience data reflect the point-in-the-game ability to command an audience more than the commercial's ability?

  2. garrett perez from ASU, February 3, 2015 at 12:26 a.m.

    I am honestly surprised that the Coca-Cola spot was beaten out by Avocados from Mexico. First off, both spots had entertainment value of some sort. However, Coca-Cola is clearly a more well known brand. Other than the domestic violence spot, all other spots ranked were selective demand advertising. Having a primary demand ad spot make the top 10 list just goes to show how powerful creativity is when it comes to ads. This seems to be especially true during the Superbowl, where sentimental and creative ads compete for the top spot year after year. It would be interesting to see if any other primary demand markets will try to make their way into the advertisement battle next year.

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