The top 5 happiest Super Bowl ads

The Super Bowl has become a huge event for the advertising industry as the world’s biggest brands fight to get noticed by one of the world’s biggest live audiences.

As we continue to explore happiness in advertising, we’ve run some of the most popular Super Bowl ads through their paces, using UnrulyEQ emotional testing to discover the happiest Super Bowl ad. Here’s what we uncovered:

20% – Doritos/Mountain Dew: Rap battle

This ad, which also launched at last year’s Super Bowl featured two huge celebrities, Peter Dinklage and Morgan Freeman lip-syncing two icon rap songs. This ad evoked happiness in 20% of respondents and was the first time that Doritos and Mountain Dew ran a combined campaign and this year it looks as though a number of brands will be following suit by combining product lines into single campaigns. Keep an eye out for our emotional analysis of the Super Bowl 2019’s ads coming soon!

22% – NFL: Touchdown celebrations to come

The happiest Super Bowl ad of last year came from the NFL and features two of the sports biggest athletes recreating the iconic dance from Dirty Dancing. This was not only the happiest Super Bowl ad of 2018 but also the funniest, scoring 24% in Hilarity. For the full analysis of the ad check out our Super Bowl LII Video Impact Study.

22% – LIFEWTR

Probably the least known brand on this list, LIFEWTR produced this ad for the 2017 Super Bowl to promote their range of bottled water. The ad shows a lifeless town being rained on by colour. The ad evoked happiness in 22% of respondents.

31% – Heinz: Winter stampede

In 2016 Heinz launched an ingenious ad during the Super Bowl to promote their range of sauces. It was a simple idea which had a huge impact and became one of the best-loved ads of 2016. This ad evoked happiness in 31% of respondents and is the second happiest Super Bowl ad on our list. We still can’t watch it without a smile on our faces!

40% – Hyundai: A better Super Bowl

Coming out on top by a long way, and evoking happiness in 9% more respondents than any other Super Bowl ad we tested is Hyundai’s 2017 Super Bowl commercial ‘A better Super Bowl’ which brings soldiers and their families together through the power of technology.

For a more in-depth analysis of 2018’s Super Bowl ads, click here to download our Super Bowl LII Video Impact Study.

This article is part of our Emotions Uncovered: Happiness fortnight, click on the banner for more content!