Super Bowl LIII ads: More action off the pitch than on!

Last night audiences around the world tuned in for the biggest sporting event of the year, the Super Bowl LIII. The game saw the New England Patriots face off against the Los Angeles Rams.

Last year the game was watched by over 103.4 million TV viewers around the world and this year, it was predicted that even more people tuned in.

During the night, social media channels were abuzz with commentary, live streams and photos of people watching the game across the world. Netflix even joined in the fun on Twitter by sharing that Netflix viewership in the US was down about 32% compared to a normal Sunday, showing off just how many people tune into the big game.

Since ending last night, the game has been criticised by many fans as being a defence focussed match with neither team taking any chances. This was reflected in the lowest scoring Super Bowl match of all time, with the Patriots winning 13 – 3.

Although there was limited action on the pitch, off the pitch the action was heating up during the ad breaks. Commercials have become a huge part of the Super Bowl tradition, and this year some of the world’s biggest brands launched film quality trailers, with many including celebrities to convey their messages including Harrison Ford, Michael Bublé, Serena Williams, some of the biggest football greats and even the Mountain from Game of Thrones! This year a 30-second ad during the game cost a whopping $5.25 million!

This year, it’s predicted that half of the Super Bowl LIII audience was female. However, we found that out of the 35 celebrities who appeared in Super Bowl 2019 ads, 13 were women compared with 22 men. Those numbers don’t look amazing for gender equality, but they mark a sharp increase compared to last year which featured 44 male celebrities vs. 12 female.

This year 37 ads featured men and 21 have women with speaking or featured roles. Last year only 13 women had featured or starring roles compared with about 50 men. This shows the growing diversity trend within advertising, with brands casting more women in starring roles.

Our UnrulyEQ team are currently putting the biggest Super Bowl LIII ads through their paces to discover what emotional outcomes the ads had on audiences. Once these ads have been tested we will be analysing the results and giving each one an UnrulyEQ score factoring in aspects like whether they evoked positive or negative emotions, brand recall, cognitive response and how highly they scored for purchase intent and favorability.

We’ll also be looking at how well the Super Bowl LIII ads were received in certain areas of the US by carrying out a cultural analysis to discover whether ads evoked different emotions, and performed better or worse depending on where viewers live.

We’ve already seen some data come back from a few of the Super Bowl LIII ads, with surprising results. For example, we’ve found that Devour’s Food Porn Super Bowl spot evoked high levels of confusion and disgust amongst viewers, and performed below the US norm across all key metrics including purchase intent, sharability and favourability!

The full results of the Super Bowl LIII ads are coming soon so keep your eyes peeled. To be the first to receive them into your inbox, click here to register your details.