Are Super Bowl Commercials Too Creative?

The Super Bowl. America's great uniter. Whether you're tuned in for the game or for the commercials, chances are you'll be near a TV on Super Bowl Sunday. Advertisers know you'll be there, too. That's when they roll out some of the best and most creative commercials of the year. And, therein lies the problem.

According to a piece by Eric Levenson at The Wire, Super Bowl commercials actually don't do as well as standard advertising in persuading people, and a big reason is companies sometimes get too creative for their (or their product's) own good.

A study from research firm Communicus, highlighted by AdAge today, found that 80 percent of Super Bowl ads fail to increase sales of their product, a number far higher than the non-Super Bowl failure rate of 60 percent. The study asked consumers their purchasing habits and opinions on brands before the Super Bowl, and then again four weeks later, and found that Super Bowl ads are remembered at a higher rate than regular ones, at 44 percent to 32 percent.

Being remembered at a higher rate is a good thing, right? Maybe not so much.

But of those that remembered the Super Bowl commercial, only 35 percent remembered the brand it was associated with. They just remembered the concept. Non-Super Bowl ads, meanwhile, have a brand recall of about 50 percent. So while people remember seeing a specific story, they more often fail to link it to a specific company.

Hey! My company just dumped nearly four million dollars into that commercial, and that's all we get?! What did we do wrong?  Communicus CEO Jeri Smith explains:

"The advertisers really dial up the entertainment quotient to pop to the top of the USA Today rankings and such," she said. "But we find the brand association with Super Bowl commercials is much lower than you'd get with a typical buy, just because of the way the creative is structured."

You mean things like hiding the logo of the product until the end?

Take, for example, Tide's minute-long commercial last year that told the enjoyable story of a ketchup stain that looked like Joe Montana, until Tide cleans the stained jersey. The commercial was placed on plenty of Best Of lists, and yet didn't increase sales or intent to buy, according to the study, likely because the Tide logo is hidden until the last few seconds. This type of commercial "run[s] the risk of people being so caught up in the story that they forget about the brand," Smith told AdAge. Similarly, the Dodge Ram "Farmer" ad, though interesting and different, was noticeably light on the brand it was attempting to promote.

We'll find out in a few weeks if big-spending advertisers are getting the message. And, more importantly, if viewers are.