EAST LANSING, Mich. — A Bud Light television advertisement featuring immigrants learning how to ask for Bud Light earned the top grade in the Michigan State University Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Retailing’s list of the best commercials of Super Bowl XLI.
While football fans watched the Indianapolis Colts defeat the Chicago Bears in Sunday night’s game, MSU advertising faculty members huddled to watch and grade the commercials. Of the nearly 60 commercials that aired during the Super Bowl, the experts rated the Bud Light commercial as the top ad in a solid but unspectacular year for Super Bowl television ads.
Additional ads from Anheuser-Busch and ads from Coca-Cola and Sprint scored well in the poll, while the Unitedway.org and Salesgenie.com were among spots that brought up the rear.
While the Bud Light spot scored the highest in the MSU poll, overall the faculty thought the spots were subpar.
“Just like the beer industry itself right now, the beer ads were flat," said Bruce Vanden Bergh, professor of advertising at MSU. "Anheuser-Busch's stuff is just OK. It's decent advertising, it just seems like the same stuff they've been doing for 10 years.
“The game was better than the ads for a change.”
Using a 10-point grading scale, the faculty rated each commercial based on creativity, production and overall quality. The team considered whether each commercial’s strategy was unique and relevant to the appropriate target consumers and also determined whether its execution was memorable and bolstered the reputation of the product.
“This is the most costly television advertising time of the year because the Super Bowl draws an enormous international audience,” Vanden Bergh said. “Beyond that, there is an intense and growing interest in what has become a separate Super Bowl for television advertisers, and each year the creative bar gets raised. “The interest in the Super Bowl ads has become so intense that if you don’t meet a pretty high standard you actually risk doing harm to your brand.” Here's how the faculty graded the commercials: Bud Light (immigrants) Coca-Cola (animated) 132 Sprint (connectile dysfunction) 126 Toyota Tundra 124 Budweiser (stray dog) 124 Bud Light (wedding reception) 120 Bud Light (rock, paper, scissors) 118 Bud Light (hitchhiker) 115 Chevrolet HHR 113 Doritos (cash register) 112 Taco Bell (lions) 112 Snickers (mechanics kiss) 109 Chevrolet (Mary J. Blige, celebs) 109 Coca-Cola (animated, vending machine) 106 Doritos 104 FedEx (truck on the moon) 104 Bud Light (monkey) 101 T-Mobile 99 Coca-Cola (black history) 96 Toyota Tundra 96 Sierra Mist (karate students) 95 Coca-Cola (senior citizens) 95 Snapple green tea 95 GoDaddy.com (marketing) 94 Ford F-450 pickup 93 Careerbuilder.com 93 FedEx (workers’ names) 93 NFL final ad 93 Garmin navigation 92 Blockbuster total access 87 Sierra Mist (guy in shorts) 85 General Motors (robot) 83 Budweiser (lobster) 81 Van Heusen 80 Etrade (one finger) 80 Schick Quatro titanium 79 Revlon (Sheryl Crow) 79 Nationwide Insurance 78 Hewlett Packard Intel 78 Etrade (bank robbery) 76 Honda fuel efficiency 75 Wild Hogs movie 74 NFL (black history) 73 Budweiser (football) 72 Disney (Meet the Robinsons) 71 Careerbuilder.com fighting Honda CR-V 70 Izod Emerald Nuts Bud Light (guy slapping) 64 Prudential (rock solid retirement) 63 Pride movie 62 Beatyourrisk.com 58 Salesgenie.com 54 Hannibal Rising 48 Flomax 46 Careerbuilder.com 44 Unitedway.org 39 Starter 38 134 70 70 65
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