February 16th, 2022, YouGov
Star power, humor, and nostalgia played crucial roles in this year’s slate of Super Bowl advertisements as marketers largely shied away from weighing in on current events or striking a patriotic tone.
YouGov looked at each of the company’s Ad Awareness scores around Super Bowl this year to reveal which advertisers managed to rise above the others. YouGov’s Ad Awareness metric is based on responses to the question “Which of the following have you seen an advertisement for in the past two weeks?”
For the purposes of this analysis, we look at the weekly average score of the week leading up to and including the Monday following the game, compared to the previous seven days. Brands will likely earn higher Ad Awareness scores throughout the week after the game as ads get shared or appear elsewhere. However, this snapshot takes into account any attention won by the ads (and the advertisers) before and during the game.
These brands saw the highest increase in Ad Awareness among Americans around the time of the Super Bowl:
Squarespace
Squarespace’s “Sally’s Seashells” spot based on the children’s tongue twister featured actor Zendaya and was narrated by André 3000 of OutKast fame. "Sally sold seashells by the seashore. But the seashells didn't sell so well, so Sally set up a seashell store on Squarespace," André 3000’s voiceover says. The spot, produced in-house, translated into an 87% week-over-week increase in the brand’s Ad Awareness score.
Coinbase
This year’s telecast featured plenty of personal finance brands, many of which were aimed at consumers who may be interested in cryptocurrency, but perhaps aren’t exactly sure how to invest. Coinbase managed to cut through that noise with a one-minute spot that featured a bouncing color-coded QR code. The ad, the brainchild of Accenture Interactive, gave the brand a 55% Ad Awareness boost. The ad was so popular, it reportedly crashed the app.
E*Trade
E*Trade, the online trading platform, brought back the talking baby that starred in the brand’s uber-successful campaign more than a decade ago. This year, the baby is voiced by comedian Pete Holmes, who is convinced to get back to work after a pair of executives tell him investors are “taking financial advice from memes.” The MullenLowe New York-produced spot helped the brand garner a 35% week-over-week Ad Awareness score hike.
WeatherTech
WeatherTech, a perennial Super Bowl advertiser, garnered a notable 26% increase in Ad Awareness after its ad this year, which didn’t feature an A-list celebrity or biting humor. The Pinnacle Advertising production did feature high production value, with a helicopter descending onto the lawn of a suburban home with helmeted “special ops” (the name of the spot) rappelling down to install WeatherTech gear into a vehicle.
Rakuten
Hannah Waddingham, of the hit show Ted Lasso, starred in Rakuten’s Super Bowl commercial in which she’s involved in a high-stakes poker game. The online shopping platform brand garnered a 23% week-over-week hike in its Ad Awareness score amid its Super Bowl campaign, which was produced in-house.
Booking.com
Travel agency Booking.com featured actor Idris Elba in its Super Bowl ad spot to tout the brand’s reliability in what should be a big year for the travel industry. Crowned the Sexiest Man Alive, Elba peppered the ad with dad jokes while wearing a Hawaiian-themed shirt and splitting wood.
The ad garnered a 16% week-over-week increase in Ad Awareness for Booking.com. The travel agency was also named to our recent Travel Brand Rankings 2022 and ranked tenth on the list of top ten travel brands in the US.
Rounding out our list of top ten brands with the biggest initial uplift following the game are Doritos (21% increase), Budweiser (18%), Draft Kings (18%), and Verizon (17%).
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Methodology: YouGov picked the ten Super Bowl advertisers that had the highest week-over-week change in Ad Awareness score around the Super Bowl LVI. YouGov only included brands that ran an ad between kickoff and the end of the game. YouGov asks “Which of the following brands have you seen advertisements for in the last two weeks?” Metric is delivered as a percentage. Sample sizes range from 188 to 828 US adults depending on brand. Learn more about BrandIndex.
Image: Squarespace