Saturday, September 8, 2007

Memorable Superbowl 2007 Commercials

There are many people who tune in to the Superbowl every year, not to watch the game, but to watch the commercials. In addition to paying advertising agencies and production costs to produce their commercials, companies pay millions of dollars for 30-second slots simply to air the commercials. Superbowl commercials are to the advertising world as the Christmas shopping season is to retail markets.

Especially when one takes into account the time and effort that is invested in each commercial, it is essential that companies find a way, preferably objective, to analyze the success or failure of each commercial. Objective evidence is hard to come by if the only measurement available comes from polling consumers. An emerging industry, neuromarketing, "the study of the brain's responses to ads" (1), is beginning to change that.

The first neuromarketing research study was published in the October 2004 issue of "Neuron." Scientists use fMRIs to study the brain activity of people during an activity, as in people watching Super Bowl commercials, and comparing that data with subjective information provided by the participants.

Three years later, "FKF Applied Research, with the help of UCLA's Ahmanson Lovelace Brain Mapping Center, said that Coca-Cola's "Video Game" ad-a 60-second animated spot that promotes random acts of kindness-scored this year because it elicited the most positive emotions in subjects' brains." (2)

The most successful ads for Superbowl 2007, were:
Coca-Cola: "Video Game"Doritos: "Live the Flavor"Bud Light: "Hitchhiker"

The least successful ads for Superbowl 2007, were:
Emerald Nuts: "Robert Goulet"Honda: "CRV Crave"Sprint: "Connectile Dysfunction"

(1) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persua ders/etc/neuro.html
(2) http://news.com.com/Who+really+won+during+the+Super+ Bowl/2100-1008_3-6156330.html

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