Business Insider India has updated its Privacy and Cookie policy. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the better experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we\'ll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on the Business Insider India website. However, you can change your cookie setting at any time by clicking on our Cookie Policy at any time. You can also see our Privacy Policy.
Super Bowl 2020 was the biggest ever in terms of ad spend. Here are the best and worst commercials.
Super Bowl 2020 was the biggest ever in terms of ad spend. Here are the best and worst commercials.
Tanya DuaFeb 4, 2020, 01:15 IST
The Kansas City Chiefs prevailed against the San Francisco 49ers after a stunning fourth-quarter turnaround while off the field, dozens of brands descended on people's screens.
It was the largest Super Bowl ever in terms of in-game ad spend, with advertisers spending an estimated $435 million to showcase their ads.
Here are the best and worst Super Bowl commercials of 2019.
Super Bowl 2020 was not just thrilling on the field with the Kansas City Chiefs pulling off a stunning fourth quarter turnaround and triumphing over the the San Francisco 49ers - but also off it.
Advertisement
It was the largest Super Bowl ever in terms of in-game ad spend, with marketers spending an estimated $435 million, according to analytics firm Kantar.
Facebook and Sabra made their debuts, joining longtime advertisers like Pepsi and Anheuser-Busch. Tide made a comeback, stirring up surprise by bringing Bud Knight back from the dead. Tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook, had a big presence. Marketers like Procter & Gamble and Planters made crossover ads.
Here are some other numbers from the Super Bowl, per Kantar:
Long-form commercials reigned, with 24 of the 59 spots in the game lasting more than 60 seconds.
Anheuser Busch InBev spent the most ($41 million), followed by Pepsi ($31 million), Procter & Gamble ($30 million), and Amazon ($26 million).
Auto manufacturers were the leading category, accounting for an estimated $77 million of spending and seven and a half minutes of commercial time
Business Insider compiled the best and worst ads of 2020, based on data from Brandwatch, Google, System1, Talkwalker, and Unruly, and our own analysis. Here are the winners, followed by losers, in alphabetical order.
Amazon's Super Bowl spot starring celebrity couple Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi, and imagining what life was like without Alexa, struck a chord.
It was the most-watched Super Bowl commercial as of 10 p.m. on game day, according to Google, and had more than 39,000 mentions online as of 10:15 p.m., according to Brandwatch.
Winner: Google
Google's tearjerker about its virtual assistant helping a man remember his late wife was the most effective ad, according to Unruly, which measures an ad's engagement and metrics like favorability and purchase intent.
Nearly half of survey respondents had an intense emotional reaction to "Loretta," and the ad scored 6.5 out of 10. It also had more than 121,000 online mentions, per Brandwatch, with 10,000 of those mentions coming within two minutes of the ad airing.
Winner: Jeep
Jeep's recreation of "Groundhog Day" featuring Bill Murray got more than 47,000 online mentions, accounting for nearly 6% of the entire conversation around the Super Bowl, according to Talkwalker.
It also received a score of 5.2 stars from System1, which rates ads from 1 to 5.9 stars based on the emotional resonance they garner to predict long-term growth potential for the brand.
Winner: Microsoft
The percentage of spots including women was up 90% from 74% last year, according to Hive Media and Bain.
The ad got 5.3 stars from System1, which rates ads from 1 to 5.9 stars based on the emotional resonance they get to predict long-term growth potential for the brand. It also elicited intense emotional engagement from 47% of Unruly's survey audience, obtaining a score of 5.7.
Winner: Olay
Olay's all-female Super Bowl spot featured successful women asking "Is there enough space in space for women?" and pledged to donate $1 for every tweet directed @OlaySkin with the hashtag #MakeSpaceforWomen to Women Who Code.
Olay captured nearly 20% of the conversation around the Super Bowl, according to Talkwalker. The hashtag #MakeSpaceForWomen was being used even before the game, but spiked again during the broadcast.
Benjamin Hordell, partner at ad agency DXAgency, called it "the best social integration," saying that "incentivizing the tweet was a nice way to make it happen."
Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman tried to drum up awareness around their forthcoming mobile streaming platform Quibi with an ad about a bank heist gone awry.
While the ad may have been trying to inform viewers that they can watch episodes on the platform in 10 minutes or less, a lot of people were confused.
USA Today's Ad Meter, which lets people rank Super Bowl ads online on a scale of 1 to 10, gave Quibi's "Bank Heist" a rating of 4.4, making it the fourth-worst ad.
Still, it was the eighth-most watched Super Bowl commercial as of 10 p.m. on game day, according to Google — perhaps because people watched it again to figure out what it was.
Damn you all spent ~$5 mil for a vague Super Bowl commercial and your company isn’t even out yet? I forgot your name immediately and only seeing this now from an additional expensive ad. Where is all this irresponsible investor money?
Tide won huge accolades for its 2018 Super Bowl ads arguing that every ad was a Tide ad because technically, any ad with clean clothes could be one.
But the same approach fell flat this year, even though it did stir up some surprise by bringing back Bud Knight from the dead. There was a small spike in the conversation around Tide's first ad (1,000 mentions), accounting to Brandwatch, but the ad did nothing for Bud Light.
