• by Erik Oster , February 16, 2024

Not every brand can be a winner in competing for audience attention and, ultimately, brand impact. One category inextricably linked to the BIg Game, though, has racked up some pretty consistent brand momentum: snack brands.

One of the big winners this year, by a variety of metrics, was Frito-Lay’s “Dina And Mita” ad for its relaunched Doritos Dinamitas line. The spot cracked USA Today Ad Meter’s top 10, and earned the number four spot on iSpot.tv’s list of Top 2024 Super Bowl Commercials. Nerds’ Super Bowl debut also cracked iSpot.tv’s top ten, at number eight.

“Dina and Mita” resonating with audiences seems to have translated to more tangible brand benefits.

According to consumer research company Veylinx, “Dina And Mita” saw a 78% increase in consumer demand for Doritos following the Super Bowl – including an increase of 100% among millennial audiences.

The Super Bowl’s benefits for snack brands aren’t limited to those advertising in the Big Game, either. Veynlinx’s study showed other brands in the same category as Big Game advertisers can also see an increase in demand. While Pringles saw an 8% increase in demand following the Super Bowl, for example, competitor Lay’s Stax saw demand increase 35%.

That phenomenon is something brands may want to consider when crafting a strategy around the Super Bowl, as evidenced by the response to this year’s Reese’s ad found in the study. While consumer demand actually declined for Reese’s 37%, consumer demand for the parent company's KitKat increased 38%, according to the study.

This year was far from an outlier in snack brands’ dominance.

According to analysis from market research company System1, snack brands have consistently had among the highest brand impact of Super Bowl advertisers over the course of the previous four Super Bowls (not including last Sunday’s game).

System1 tested 308 Super Bowl ads that aired between 2020 and 2023 with 46,200 U.S. respondents for the study, and found that snack brands were consistently among the highest-performing ads.

M&Ms 2023 ad earned the number two spot, while two Frito-Lay brands, Cheetos and Doritos, rounded out the top five with ads which ran during the 2020 Super Bowl. Reese’s Take Five’s 2020 “Rock” and last year’s Popcorners “Breaking Good” spot also cracked the top 10. Popcorners also saw the third-most increase in consumer demand among ads measured by Velinx in its 2023 study, and was number one among men.

“Snack brands are natural advertisers for the Super Bowl, because who isn’t snacking while watching the game?” System1 Chief Customer Officer Jon Evans said in a statement. “The ads score big because they leverage creative features that capture the broad-beam attention of the right brain, which helps create memory structures to enhance long-term brand building.”

According to Evans, the playbook for the winning brands share a few things in common, including a humorous tone, catchy music, and cultural references. Top ads also tend to focus on brand characters, like M&Ms recurring personalities for its different colored candies. Each of the ads places the brand at the center, with Cheetos’ 2020 ad’s focus on the flavorful dust left behind on consumers’ fingers a primary example.