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The Day Before the Big Game: Everything We Know About Super Bowl 50 Ads So Far

UPDATE [Saturday, Feb. 6, 2016, 1:00 p.m. PT] — With one day to go before the big game, iSpot.tv’s VIP Super Bowl 50 Ad Center is in full horse-race mode. There have been more than 1.3 million social actions explicitly related to Super Bowl 50 ads and teasers and over 322 million views (as of Saturday, Jan. 6 at 12 a.m. EST). And the ads have already generated more than 350 million TV impressions.

Comparing the Last Two Years at One Day Before the Big Game*

yearcompare 

*more historic data below

Trends We’ve Tracked Through Feb. 5

46 Brands have released 79 ads or teasers associated with Super Bowl 50.

New on the scene: ads from Esurance, Fitbit and Schick.

Earned Digital Response: Pokémon’s 20th anniversary ad, Hyundai’s Kevin Hart ad and Heinz’s wiener dog stampede are leading the pack when it comes to social activity and (organic) views. (More details below.)

On TV: So far, an estimated $10.36 million has been spent on 2,543 national ad airings, 619 in primetime (that’s down from $12.5 million spent in 2015).

All told, paid and earned television airings of Super Bowl ads and teasers have amassed 353 million TV impressions. Bud Light (91.2 million) is owning the lion’s share of the impressions.

TV Stickiness/Performance: Of the 15 ads and teasers that have aired during commercial breaks, Wix’s “Kung Fu Panda Discovers the Power of Wix” teaser has the highest average view rate at 96.7%. Collectively, Super Bowl 50 ads and teasers have an average view rate of 82.65% so far.

T-Mobile’s “Restricted Bling” featuring Drake has benefitted from the social reach of its star and paid promotions on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to generate an estimated social reach of 142 million.

The race for online views is being led by Hyundai (45.5 million), Wix (26.4 million) and Amazon (25.6 million), all of which are investing in getting their ads seen on YouTube and Facebook. Of the 322 million views so far for all Super 50 ads and teasers, iSpot.tv estimates 82 million are organic or unpaid. Of note, Hyundai has spent to generate 31.8 million views on this teaser.

Earned TV impressions before ads are inserted: Some Super Bowl 50 ads and teasers, despite not running in paid ad slots, have generated significant impressions from replays on news and entertainment programs. Before paying to officially air an ad on national TV, Amazon Echo has generated 10.8 million TV views, followed by Audi (10.3 million), SoFi (9.7 million), Hyundai (8.4 million), TurboTax (7.7 million) and MINI USA (6.2 million).

Elsewhere on the iSpot.tv blog: There have been 40 celebs so far in Super Bowl 50 ads, with many more sure to appear. So far 2016 has eclipsed last year’s celebrity count of 27. Also, 50% of online views for ads happened before kickoff last year.

Top Three Ads Ranked by Organic Views and Social Actions Explicitly Tied to Those Ads:

1.Pokémon’s 20th (extended pre-release): 14 million organic views and 347,000 social actions have generated a social reach of 69 million,and 4.5 million TV impressions despite no spending on television pre-game.

2. Hyundai’s bet on “First Date,” featuring Kevin Hart, is paying off, with 4.5 million of 6.8 million (earned) views and 108,000 of 152,000 of social actions explicitly linked to this ad coming in the last 24 hours (12:00 p.m. EST) for a total social reach of just over 21 million.

3. Heinz’s “Wiener Stampede,” with its 3.7 million earned views (8.1 million overall) and 465,000 social actions explicitly tied to that creative, has been a steady gainer.

*Follow the creative horse race on this real-time leaderboard, where iSpot.tv ranks the digital share of voice (the most organic digital activity explicitly related to TV ads). You can also see a view of  24-hour trending.

Historic Data

In 2015: Super Bowl ads accounted for 8.9% of all social activity for TV ads and 7.8% of all video views. (Details below.)

The NFL season: There were 2,545 national TV ad airings through the 2015-16 AFC and NFC Championship games.

Biggest Spenders During ’15-’16 NFL Season

NFLspenders

NFLbrands

*More details on social and view data for 2015

 

Of the 268.4 million social actions (shares, likes, tweet, votes, comments) across Twitter, Facebook and YouTube explicitly linked to the airing of TV ads in 2015, 24 million or 8.9% were for ads appearing in the big game. Put another way: 88 Super Bowl ads accounted for 8.9% of all digital activity last year. Of the 7.2 billion earned video views for TV ads in 2015, 560 million or 7.8% were generated by Super Bowl ads.