#TBT 2015 Super Bowl Commercial Recap
In anticipation of the up and coming Super Bowl game, we took a look back at the car industry commercials that aired during the 2015 game. During the 2015 Super Bowl game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots, 61 TV commercials aired and almost a fifth of them were advertisements for cars and car manufacturers — and Dodge was the second best commercial for car manufacturers.
The ads, which consisted of ten different automakers, ranged from heart wrenching to funny and all types of emotions in between. While it is hard to judge if these commercials were successful in selling cars or establishing a positive brand identity, opinions and feedback from the general public and media offered insight into what auto commercials did and didn’t work.
While it was interesting to see which commercials ranked the best, it was just as interesting to see the difference in opinion from the general public and advertising professionals.
USA Today’s Ad Meter is a tool that allows the general public to rank the commercials on a scale from 1-10. From the overall looks of things from last year, commercials produced for car manufacturers did a pretty good job at appealing to the general public.
From the ad meter, four out of the 12 total car manufacturer commercials made the top 10, and eight of the twelve were ranked in the top 20. Here are the results from the USA Today Ad Meter voter breakdown of the 12 car manufacturer commercials:
- Fiat “Blue Pill”
- Dodge “Wisdom”
- Toyota “My Bold Dad”
- Nissan “With Dad”
- Jeep “Beautiful Lands”
- BMW “Newfangled Idea”
- Kia “The Perfect Getaway”
- Mercedes-Benz “Fable”
- Toyota “How Great I Am”
- Chevrolet “Colorado”
- Lexus “Let’s Play”
- Lexus “Let’s Make Some Noise”
However, professional opinions did disagree on a few of these rankings, most notably the commercials for Nissan and Fiat.
While the general public found the humor-based Fiat “Blue Pill” commercial funny and ranked it as as the third best commercial overall, Time Magazine gave the commercial a C- and Billboard named the commercial as the third worst.
The lengthy Nissan “With Dad” commercial also had poor reviews from professionals but was ranked ninth on USA Today’s Ad Meter. Among those who didn’t favor the commercial were Adweek editor Lisa Granastein due to the commercials unclear message. Billboard found the the commercial’s music choice, which was a song by a singer who died in a car crash, for a commercial about a car crash, a little distasteful and confusing.
In terms of commercials that the media ranked better than the general public was Kia’s “
The Perfect Getaway” that featured former James Bond actor, Pierce Brosnan, and BMW’s “Newfangled Idea.”
Despite differences on those commercials, a couple opinions were shared by both audiences. First is that Dodge’s “Wisdom” commercial was well executed and second, the two commercials for Lexus’s, weren’t of much discussion or interest by professionals or the general public.
So far for this year’s game set for Sunday, Feb. 7, we know brands like Toyota and Kia will be making a return appearance game and that a handful of other manufacturers like Audi, Honda and Hyundai will join the list.