Commentary

The cost of a Super Bowl spot keeps increasing—with prices this year in the neighborhood of $7million for 30-seconds! With ever-increasing stakes, Super Bowl advertisers are investing more time and attention on the ads.

The 2023 Super Bowl featured upbeat, safe advertising. The number of celebrities seemed to hit a new high, with many advertisers featuring a cast of different characters. Of course, all the partnerships and celebrity appearances make production another huge cost. How expensive were some of those ads to produce? Perhaps $3 million? More?.

Overall, it was a strong collection of advertising. For the 19th year, a panel of approximately 70 Kellogg students evaluated all the ads during the game. Here are the top and bottom spots, according to the Kellogg Super Bowl Ad Review panel.

Google Pixel

The top spot this year was Google Pixel. The ad broke through the clutter, starting with an emotional segment on memories, then pivoting to correcting them. At the core, it was a product demonstration.

The late branding might have been a problem for some, but the overall look and feel was so consistent with Google’s past efforts that the panel made the connection.

Of interest, the features shown in the spot weren’t unique to Google, but somehow that didn’t matter. Just because something exists in the world doesn’t mean most people know about it.

Disney

The Disney spot was a surprise; the company hadn’t released plans for the ad in advance. The Disney spot was charming and exceptionally well-branded. It was a reminder spot, highlighting just how remarkable Disney is.

This ad didn’t have a specific call to action, but it reinforced positive associations among anyone familiar with the Disney brand. It is a great example of using the reach of the Super Bowl to reinforce the relationship between a consumer and the brand to maintain brand equity.

Doritos

Doritos made a curious strategic decision, to focus on the shape of its chip. Some might debate that call, since people don’t buy a chip because of its shape. Moreover, the shape isn’t even a unique attribute. Frito-Lay was also running another Super Bowl spot for another triangle-shaped chip, Popcorners.

Still, that didn’t seem to matter as this engaging spot scored well with the Kellogg panel. It was surprising and cute, with strong branding. The Elton John appearance was one of the great moments of the Super Bowl.

Kia

Bringing together a product, an insight and a benefit is often a recipe strong advertising. That was certainly the case with the Kia Binky Dad spot. Parents can easily relate to forgetting a child’s special item, and the emotional trauma that can result. The Binky Dad’s heroic effort to retrieve the forgotten item is embraced by social media. It captivates the nation’s attention.

In the middle of this story, however, is a product demonstration. The ad features the Kia Telluride doing amazing things.

T-Mobile

T Mobile has become one of the most consistent Super Bowl advertisers. This year the company did it again, scoring well with two strong spots. Branding was solid in both executions. The Bradley Cooper spot was funny and communicated product messages: America’s largest 5G network, price lock and most awarded.

The second spot, a takeoff of Grease, was charmingly product focused. Tell me more was a call to action. The ad also communicated product information like one cord, fast speeds, $50 a month.

Uber

Uber ran perhaps the most complex spot of the Super Bowl, featuring artists singing about its loyalty program Uber One. The ad was distinctive and broke through the clutter. It also communicated the benefit: saving money.

There wasn’t much in the way of detail. How much saving? Any other benefits? Still, perhaps getting people to remember that Uber One is enough. People will then take the next step, learning more about the product. Tell me more.

GM

It might be hard to go wrong with Will Ferrell in a Super Bowl ad. GM ran a Super Bowl spot with him in 2021, a clever spot about Norway.

This year’s GM spot, featuring a Netflix partnership, attracted attention. It clearly communicated GM has a lot of EVs.

The Kellogg panel gave this a high score. We are a little more split ourselves. First, we found the branding is odd. Do people know the GM brands? Second, why buy a GM EV? Given GM has established itself in the EV category, it might be time to differentiate itself. For now, the question remains: why buy a GM EV instead of a Tesla?

SquareSpace

For many years, perhaps most years, you would find Squarespace at the bottom of our rankings. The brand has run some very weak ads over the year. Most of the misses were from a lack of linkage – the creative was interesting, but the branding was weak, and it wasn’t clear what the product even did.

This year, Squarespace went with a different approach and, according to the Kellogg panel, it worked. The spot featuring Adam Driver was creative in execution, but essentially a simple product description. Squarespace is a website that makes websites. Got it.

Popcorners

Media partnerships were a creative theme this year, and Popcorners embraced Breaking Bad in its Super Bowl spot. The spot was creative, and the branding was strong. Not everyone may walk away knowing exactly what Popcorners are, but we will try them despite the association with some rather unsavory characters.

Rémy Martin

Serena Williams showed up in two first quarter spots. This might be good for Serena, but it isn’t ideal for either Rémy Martin or Michelob Ultra.

Michelob Ultra ran a creative, engaging spot. However, perhaps the story was more interesting than the brand. The Kellogg panel gave it a C.

Rémy Martin ended up as the bottom spot in the Kellogg ranking. The problem? There was so little linkage. The ad is an inspirational talk about Serena about teamwork, dedication, and achievement. How does Rémy Martin fit into that story? It doesn’t seem to. Branding is weak, linkage is weak.

M&Ms

This year M&Ms rolled out an elaborate campaign. The brand was going to shift away from the characters and embrace Maya Rudolph. She would proceed to make crazy changes. The characters would come back and save the day.

The problem?

First, the brand misled major news outlets, which is not a great way to build credibility, trust, and good relationships with media partners.

Second, the Super Bowl spot was just Maya Rudolph doing crazy things like introducing clam M&Ms. That was it.

After the game, there was a spot with the characters holding a news conference announcing their return. This attempted to resolve the story. But the main Super Bowl ad fell flat.

This effort was just too complicated.

Tubi

The prize for the most disturbing character on the Super Bowl this year goes to Tubi and its demonic rabbits. The critters showed up on several occasions, but it was never clear why they were roaming the screen.

The Super Bowl interruption spot caused stress for millions – at least some in our room were panicked that our review would run into technical problems. That attracted attention.

Tubi never really got around to its positioning. Who is it for? What is it? What is the benefit?

Overall, a great year for Super Bowl advertising. Look for another year of record prices in 2024.