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YouTube Viewers Choose Tide To Go

The Tide to Go “Talking Stain” ad was selected as the number one ad in the YouTube 2008 Super Bowl advertising poll.

Video clips of the Super Bowl commercials on the YouTube AdBlitz site generated over 20 million views in the week since the February 3rd game.  Viewers cast 900,000 votes rating each spot and the “Talking Stain” earned the received the most votes and the highest overall rating.

Tide created a fantastic microsite at www.mytalkingstain.com where you can upload a picture, record a voice over and create your own talking stain ad.  The site is brilliant.

Kevin Burke, P&G’s North America Laundry Marketing Director agrees:

"The number of people that continue to watch the ad and visit our website has vastly exceeded our expectations.  We are thrilled about the positive response from consumers and ad critics across the country"

"Consumers have spent more than 15,000 hours on mytalkingstain.com since launch, and we have already received a considerable number of video entries from consumers."

Rounding out the top 5 on the YouTube poll are:

2. Budweiser Clydesdales
3. SoBe Thriller
4. Bridgestone Critters
5. e-Trade Baby Spit Up

The Bud Clydesdale ad had the top spot on most of the other viewer ratings sites, but the top 5 is pretty consistent across the polls.   

How does social media discussion and ad effectiveness research line up?

Pretty well, actually.

And looking at where the lists align and where they diverge is instructive of what makes an ad talkworthy and what doesn't. The results suggest that the pre-game PR program is a significant variable in predicting post-game discussion. (Peter Kim has an interesting post today on using brand monitoring as a predictive tool). But also, while driving word of mouth (WOM) is a great result, highly effective ads don't have to spur WOM, raising the question of whether WOM should be used as a predictive tool in ad effectiveness.

My colleague reported the results of the TNS Commercial Performance Index study listing the following as the most effective ads, (and I'm adding the next few to his list):

• Budweiser Clydesdales
• Coca-Cola Parade Balloons
• Bridgestone Tires: Screaming Animals
• NFL: Living a Dream
• Bud Light: Wine & Cheese
• Tide-to-Go: Talking Stain
• Bud LIght: Fire
• E*Trade: Baby & Clown

Here are the most-discussed brands in social media (through Monday):

• Anheuser-Busch (FYI, many posts simply say things like "Loved those Bud ads" without a specific ad reference)
• Audi (which scored a respectable CPI of 188)
• Pepsi (the Justin Timberlake ad scored a solid 216 CPI)
• Coca-Cola
• Go-Daddy
• Bridgestone
• E*Trade

GoDaddy is easily explainable: CEO Bob Parsons has pursued a "get-people-talking" Super Bowl ad strategy for years, and clearly cares more for the word of mouth value than the quality of the ad.

The presence of Audi and Pepsi shows that what an ad lacks in effectiveness can be made up with good PR program ahead of the game to draw attention to the brand. Pepsi was the most-talked about brand during January while Audi was sixth in pre-game discussion. (Bud, Coke, Bridgestone, and Doritos rounded out the most-discussed brands before the game -- see a pattern?)

The absence of the NFL from social media discussion shows that an ad doesn't have to spur WOM to be effective. While the ad told a nice story, there was nothing talk worthy about it, so its absence is understandable. 

The absence of Tide is a bit more puzzling to me. It was a unique enough idea, and was backed up with the right online elements: a good microsite and viral "create your own talking stain" function. Would be interested in your thoughts on why it didn't get the level of talk it could have.

TNS Reports on the Most Memorable and Best Performing Super Bowl Ads

Our parent company TNS surveyed over a thousand adults between 18 and 54 years old Monday to determine how they felt about the ads in Sunday’s Super Bowl. This survey is interesting because they looked beyond the basic "did you like/dislike the ad" question to see which commercials were recalled the next day and which ones were most influential and effective at delivering a brand impact.

Ad Recall
First they asked about which ads people remembered the most the next day.  E-Trade’s ads proved to be most memorable; both of their talking baby spots were among the most recalled ads.  Here’s the top 5:

1. E-Trade: Spit up baby - (70% recall)
2. Bud Light: Will Ferrell Semi-Pro - (69% recall)
3. Budweiser: Clydesdales - (67% recall)
4. Sobe LifeWater - (67% recall)
5. E-Trade: Talking baby with clown - (66% recall)

Best Performing
The panel evaluated each of the commercials and promos on three dimensions - commercial likeability, positive brand impact and future purchase consideration. TNS combined the scores on these factors to come up with a single score, called the called the Commercial Performance Index (CPI),  to represent the ad’s effectiveness.  Here are the 5 ads that performed the best:

1. Budweiser: Clydesdales (+387 CPI)
2. Coca Cola: Balloon (+373 CPI)       
3. Bridgestone Tires: Screaming Animals (+352 CPI)            
4. NFL Living A Dream (+321 CPI)

These spots also scored at the top of most consumer rating polls. In fact the Bud Clydesdale ad won the influential USA Today Ad Meter.

Our analysis of ad-related consumer discussions in social media after the game supports these findings.  The Anheuser-Busch ads (which include all the Bud and Bud Light spots) generated twice the volume of conversations than the second place brand (Audi). The discussions about both of Coke’s ads were extraordinarily positive.

We saw an interesting trend emerge as advertisers announced their ads plans and released teasers in the last week or two before the game.  Many advertisers were leaving the “shock and awe” theme behind in favor of themes of social responsibility and family values.  We wrote more about that here.

Sure, you had your guys attaching jumper cables to their chest to jump start a car, but "nice" won this year. The ads with upbeat, positive messages were effective with consumers and also generated additional brand value in word of mouth.

Another Super Bowl Ad Award -- The Offensive Hat Trick Award: Salesgenie.com

Pardon me for mixing sports concepts by introducing the hockey term 'hat trick' into a football discussion.

And understand that when I use the term "offensive" here, I don't mean the rushing/passing/scoring prowess that the NY Giants displayed in Phoenix.

I mean that Salesgenie.com, who proclaimed their goal to have the worst ad on the Super Bowl, not only achieved that goal, but went on to offend three large groups of people:

• The Indian subcontinent
• China
• Any intelligent viewer

Fortunately for them, their ad has not caused the avalanche of discussion that drove the Snickers "Mechanics Kissing" ad to be the second most talked about ad after the game last year. But among the little discussion Salesgenie is getting, Cymfony has tracked that half of it includes criticism of the ethnic stereotypes used or accusations of outright racism. Here are a couple of examples:

"The worst: two Salesgenie commercials that used ethnic stereotypes and weren't the least bit amusing." Source: See you at the yard, Meat

"Don't doubt for a second that Salesgenie is going to face protests over this. I just talked to a spokesman for OCA, an Asian-Pacific American advocacy group. "We found it really racist," he says. "We'll be discussing how to respond..." Source: Portfolio.com

"I hope that Salesgenie goes under after their incredibly racist commercials." Source: Forumopolis

TNS Provides a Log of all the Ads and Promos

I know it is easy to find videos of the Super Bowl ads online, but if you are looking for a spot that might have run during either the pre-game or the post-game, or if you missed that Ben Roethlisberger American Idol promo, you’ve come to the right place. 

TNS Media Intelligence has posted clips of all the ads, trailers and promos that ran from about 6pm until the post-game ended at 10:30 pm (eastern time).  The clips are listed in chronological order with the exact time they aired.  Relive the ad experience here on the TNS Super Bowl Creative Log.

It’s Official: This Was the Most Watched Super Bowl Ever

The numbers are in. Last night’s Super Bowl topped the 1996 Cowboys-Steelers game as the most watched Super Bowl ever.  With 97.5 million viewers, Super Bowl XLII is now the second most watched television broadcast in history behind the 1983 M-A-S-H finale. (M-A-S-H drew 106 million viewers.)

Overall, last night’s game had a 43.3 rating and a 65 share. (43% of the nation's TV sets and 65% of the TVs that were on were tuned into the game) 

Boston’s team may not have won on the field, but their fans won big in the viewership contest.  The audience share in the Boston market was 81% while the New York market was just over the national average at 67%.

Create Your Own Talking Stain Ad

If you liked the Tide to Go talking stain spot in the Super Bowl last night, you can actually create your own version of it right now on Tide’s www.mytalkingstain.com. 

The site lets you upload a picture so you can give your stain a face. You can even call a toll-free number to record a custom voice for your stain.  Then you can share it - email it to your friends, download it to your computer, or copy the code to embed the video in your site or blog. I can see people having a lot of fun with this.  I think this is a brilliant way to leverage the concept of the ad, get people more involved (dare I say engaged) with the brand, and keep them talking about it after long the game.

Considering that my three year old actually got sick on me during the national anthem last night, I thought this would be appropriate...

How Are Ads Scoring on Viewer Rating Polls?

UPDATED - 2/5 11am Eastern

We know the results of the USA Today Ad meter, now let’s take a mid-day look at how the ads are doing on the other viewer voting sites.   

AdBowl
1. Budweiser Clydesdales
2. Bridgestone Critters
3. Coca-Cola Balloons
4. Fedex
5. Pepsi Timberlake

SpotBowl
1. Budweiser Clydesdales
2. Bridgestone Critters
3. Tide to Go
4. FedEx
5. Coca-Cola Balloons

AOL
1. Budweiser Clydesdales
2. Bridgestone Critters
3. Coca-Cola Balloons
4. Lifewater
5. eTrade Spit Up

Wall Street Journal Readers Poll
1. Budweiser Clydesdales
2. eTrade Clown
3. Coca-Cola Balloons
4. FedEx
5. Bud Light Semi Pro

Tivo
1. E-Trade Baby
2. Pepsi Timberlake
3. Doritos Mouse Trap
4. Coca-Cola Carville/Frist
5. Ice Breakers

SuperAdSurvey.com
1.  Budweiser Clydesdales
2. Coca-Cola Carville/Frist
3. eTrade Clown
4. FedEx
5. Bud Light Fire Breathing

Stay tuned for more updates throughout the day....

Bud Wins the USA Today Ad Meter… Again.

For the 10th year in a row, Budweiser won the influential USA Today Ad Meter poll.  The winning ad this year was the Clydesdale ad. 

The ad featured a Clydesdale that was rejected from the hitch team. The Bud Dalmatian takes him under his wing and trains him to the Rocky theme song.  The ad ends with the Clydesdale returning the next year as a champion.

Anheuser-Busch’s chief creative officer Bob Lachky talks about the theme of the ad in USA Today this morning:

"It is a spot about tradition, about the little guy succeeding,"

"There's a real era of cynicism right now, and America was ready for this message. It has a message about trying harder."

Here’s the rest of the USA Today top 5...
1. Budweiser
2. FedEx
3. Bridgestone Critters
4. Doritos Mouse
5. Bud Light Fire Breathing

It is interesting to note that each of these ads in the top 5 feature animals.

Scoring at the bottom of the list was the Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” contest winner Kina Grannis and her love song “Message From You Heart”. 

55. Doritos “Message From Your Heart”
54. White House Drug Control
53. Under Armour
52. Iron Man trailer
51. GMC Yukon

USA Today conducts this poll with 234 volunteers in Chicago and in McLean, VA. These people record their reactions to each of ads during the game on a special handheld device.  Advertisers pay close attention to this poll. Last year Careerbuilder fired their creative agency after scoring poorly in this poll.  Hyundai even made a reference to this poll in one of its ads this year.

There's Still Time To Vote!

You've read Jim's comments on the game and now its your turn. Cast your vote for your favorite ads today.  Here's a list of the sites where you can view the spots and vote for your favorites.  Check back to this blog throughout the day for updates on how the ads are scoring across each of these sites.