What to Watch Out for in the Super Bowl Ads

Millions will tune in to the Super Bowl on Sunday to see whether the Patriots or Seahawk’s will win (and whether there are any deflated balls shenanigans). However, they will also see the famous Super Bowl commercials, each priced at $4.5 Million per: 30 spot—and that’s just the airtime, let alone how much they spent on the ad itself. The question is, which of the high-dollar ads will be worth it?

Every year there are some great ones. Here are the top ten:

Whether an ad is funny, bad, or emotionally stirring, knowing which ones are going to be worth the $4.5 million price tag depends on another factor: how it engages the brain in the viewer. This is achieved by evoking an emotion. Joy, pride, happy, sad….

Understanding experience psychology is an important part of building a brand. The way an experience creates emotion in us affects how the brand imprints the brand in our mind. Called Neuromarketing, it is the applied study of how the brain responds to marketing stimuli. The marketing stimuli are the Four Ps: Place, Price, Promotion, and Product.

To ensure success stimulating the Four Ps, certain parts of the brain need to be engaged. Marketers need their ads to activate the complex centers of the viewers’ brain by using emotions. In 2008, Tjaco Walvis gave us three laws of branding that will help achieve this effect:

1. Brands need to be Relevant
2. Brands need to be Coherent.
3. Brands need to be Rich.

With this in mind, consider the Super Bowl Ads. Which ones have all three? Which ones appeal to our emotions? How do they leave an impression in our minds? To answer these questions, let’s look a little closer at the three laws.

1. Relevance. How important a brand is to us is how much it matters to our lives. Brands have to personal. They have to be useful. Once you have that connection to viewers, then you have a great chance of making a connection in their brain.
2. Coherence. Referring to the cues about the brand in the past, coherence shows that by repetition, you can connect to the viewer. The cue needs to be the same specific cue and it needs to be seen several times. Getting a person to notice it is key, and the Super Bowl airing is a great time for that (maybe even worth the chunk of change it cost if your foundation is laid properly). Now, the important thing to do once the ad was seen on the Super Bowl is repeat it.
3. Richness. Richness is about wealth, but not the monetary kind. The currency for neuromarketing is connections to areas of the brain. The more that are active at any given moment, the richer a brand is. So an ad that activates several parts of the brain at once is richer than its competitor.

Super Bowl ads have become a great tradition for marketers and viewers alike. As the price tag climbs, however, effectiveness is a key factor for continuing the tradition. On Sunday, a few of these brands will be brilliant examples of using the three laws of branding to stimulate the Four Ps at a neuromarketing level. Others will prove it might be wise to spend their money a little differently next year.

What’s your favorite Super Bowl ad? I’d love to hear your opinion in the comments below.

"Unlocking the Hidden Customer Experience: Short Stories of Remarkable Practices that Ensure Success”is designed to help organizations take their Customer Experience to the next level. This book focuses on what it takes to evoke the best emotions from your Customer Experience and the vital role of the conscious and subconscious experience with real-world examples. It became available today, for only $9.99! Read more here.

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If you enjoyed this post, you might be interested in the following blogs:

• Emotionally Engagement and Brand Loyalty: Procter and Gamble Gets it, Do You?
• Guinness: Being ‘Made of More’ with Your Brand
• Thinking Fast and Lazy: Why Do Ads Target Your Emotions?

Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world's first organizations devoted to customer experience. Colin is an international author of four bestselling books and an engaging keynote speaker.

Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter @ColinShaw_CX