I use to watch the Super Bowl for the ads, but am finding myself paying more attention to the game as of late. Don’t get me wrong, I still watch for the ads, but with the advent of AdBlitz on Youtube, you can hop online and watch it later.
Hoping for a Seattle win over New England, I noticed something different about the Super Bowl ads this year, they were after my emotions. Now when I say emotion, I am NOT talking about the emotion you get from watching a half naked, 32D model walking through a farmer’s market, I am talking about an emotion that invokes more empathy.
Out of the 64 ads that aired this year during Super Bowl XLIX, minus the 15 network ads and movie trailers (I don’t see those as ads), you have a total of 49 ads. Below I marked out what I feel were ads that tried to attack your emotions:
| Commercial | Advertiser | Emotion |
|---|---|---|
| #LikeAGirl | Always | X |
| @AmFam | American Family Insurance | |
| #FirstDraftEver | Avocados From Mexico | |
| Newfangled Idea | BMW | |
| Real Life PacMan #UpForWhatever | Bud Light | |
| Lost Dog | Budweiser | X |
| Brewed The Hard Way | budweiser | |
| AU NATUREL | Carl's Jr. | |
| Come Back To The Sea | Carnival | X |
| Clash of Clans: Revenge | Clash of Clans | |
| #MakeItHappy | Coca-Cola | X |
| Wisdom | Dodge | |
| Middle Seat | Doritos | |
| When Pigs Fly | Doritos | |
| #RealStrength | Dove | X |
| EAT24 | EAT24 | |
| The FIAT Blue Pill | FIAT | |
| Who I Am | Game of War: Fire Age | |
| Push It featuring Salt-N-Pepa | GEICO | |
| Working | GoDaddy | |
| Because Burrito! | Grubhub | |
| Beautiful Lands | Jeep | X |
| The Perfect Getaway | Kia Motors | |
| Make Some Noise | Lexus | |
| Let's Play | Lexus | |
| Positive Feelings | Loctite | |
| Chris Dambach's Story | M&T Bank | X |
| Fred Jackson's Story | M&T Bank | X |
| Pay With Lovin' | McDonald's | X |
| Fable | Mercedes-Benz | |
| Estella's Brilliant Bus | Microsoft | X |
| Braylon O'Neill | Microsoft | X |
| Band Of Brands: 37 Brands, One big game Ad | Newcastle | |
| With Dad | Nissan | X |
| NO MORE's | Nomore.org | X |
| Northrop Grumman Hangar | Northrop Grumman | |
| Redfin: The World has Changed | Redfin | |
| Settle It | Skittles | |
| The Brady Bunch | Snickers | |
| Sprint's Super Apology | Sprint | |
| #KimsDataStash | T-Mobile | |
| Data Vulture | T-Mobile | |
| Sarah Silverman & Chelsea Handler for Wi-Fi Calling | T-Mobile | |
| How Great I Am | Toyota | X |
| My Bold Dad | Toyota | X |
| 2015 TurboTax Big Game Commercial | Turbo Tax | |
| The OFFICIAL | Victoria's Secret | |
| All You Can Eat | Weight Watchers | |
| Wix's #ItsThatEasy | Wix.com |
Based on the above table, almost 1/3 or 31% of all commercials this year brought you to an emotional state beyond laughter. If you were to read Brian Ahearn’s article People Buy Based on Emotion and Justify with Logic you will notice something at play here, companies are starting to see that emotion plays a big part of our buying habits. Not like this is something new, but for Super Bowl ads it is. Last year the trend started and I would be curious to see if that trend continues over the next few years.
What are your thoughts, did any commercial this year tug at your heart more than usual? Comment below.
I didn’t get a chance to see all the commercials, but the Dove Men + Care commercial I thought was great. There will always be those T&A commercials, but I think the ones that do pull on your emotions are the ones you remember the most.