BUD Anheuser Busch Inbev SA NV

By Suzanne Vranica 

What do comedian Amy Schumer, an overly active fetus and the singer Seal have in common? Each appeared in commercials Sunday during Super Bowl 50 that scored big with viewers.

Bud Light, which ran a funny election-themed ad featuring Ms. Schumer and actor Seth Rogen enlisting supporters to join the "Bud Light Party," seems to have gotten its marketing mojo back, according to advertising executives and consumers surveyed by The Wall Street Journal.

"Well done and great casting," said Ewen Cameron, co-founder of ad agency Berlin Cameron United.

Getting Bud Light's advertising back on track is critical for parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world's largest brewer. Bud Light sales have struggled for more than a year and the brand has had trouble finding the right marketing message. Wieden & Kennedy created the spot for the big game.

"Nice to see Bud Light come back," said Mike Duda, managing partner at Bullish, another creative agency.

"Awesome Bud Light ad," said Tyler Piluzza, a 31-year-old fashion designer from Newport Beach, Calif.

The National Football League--which has been dealing with controversies that include concussions, domestic violence and the air pressure of footballs--hit a high note during the game with an ad that shows babies, children and adults, who were born nine months after their parents' favorite teams won the Super Bowl, singing Seal's "Kiss from a Rose."

"The spot has universal appeal and makes you feel good," said Courtney Doyle, a partner at Connelly Partners. The ad was crafted by WPP PLC's Grey.

Meanwhile, perennial fan favorite Doritos got viewers laughing. Its spot, created by a consumer, featured a pregnant woman getting a sonogram and the fetus can be seen trying to get dad's Doritos. The PepsiCo Inc. snack brand "owns shock" advertising, said Chris Becker, chief executive officer of Gyro.

"Doritos was the most clever ad, said John Brown, a 51-year old real-estate agent in Philadelphia.

All three winning spots featured in the defense-heavy title game where the Denver Broncos defeated the Carolina Panthers had something in common: humor.

The lighter tone was a marked departure from last year's ad contest that experts said was weighed down by too many companies airing overly emotional ads, or spots that tackled heavy issues such as cyberbullying and gender stereotyping.

"Humor brings people together, even if it's a smile and not a big laugh, " said Allen Adamson, a branding consultant. "Heavier social issues" can be "polarizing."

The notable exception during the game included several pharmaceutical ads that touched on uncomfortable topics such as irritable-bowel syndrome, constipation and toe-nail fungus.

Super Bowl ads remain a powerful cultural phenomenon year after year, regardless of the changes in the media landscape or people's attitudes toward TV ads in general.

These days, anti-advertising sentiment is running particularly high. Young viewers are being drawn to streaming video services such as Netflix and Amazon, in part because they don't show ads. Some Web users are turning to ad blockers to escape the onslaught of marketing messages.

Many of those concerns, however, seem to melt away for a day each February.

Indeed, the excitement starts even before the big game. Last week, 11.4 million viewers tuned in to CBS to watch "Super Bowl Greatest Commercials 2016"--an entire show about ads from past NFL title games. That is more viewers than many prime-time programs get.

For advertisers, the stakes on Super Bowl Sunday are enormous. Not only are 100 million-plus viewers likely watching, but the Super Bowl is the priciest real estate on TV, with 30-second spots costing as much as $5 million this year. That doesn't include the millions that some of the advertisers spend to create and publicize their big-game ads.

Yes, ads for an ad.

Marketers have spent an estimated $11.9 million on national TV ads during the past few weeks to tease their Super Bowl commercials, according to ad-tracker iSpot.tv.

Still, not every ad lived up to the hype. Spots from online lender Social Finance Inc. (SoFi), SunTrust Banks Inc., and a spot from AstraZeneca that talked about opioid-induced constipation, missed the mark, according to ad executives and consumers.

"It's weird to have a constipation ad in the Super Bowl," said Margie Truwit, a 26-year-old law student from Chappaqua, NY.

SoFi's ad, which showed shots of random people doing everyday tasks as a narrator points out if the person is "great" or "not great," was slammed for being mean spirited. The spot was "elitist," said Mark DiMassimo, chief executive officer of the agency DiMassimo Goldstein. "Brands calling people 'not great,' is not great," he added. "Too judgmental," said Carla Mote, managing partner at Red Tettemer O'Connell + Partners.

"I didn't like that one, it was too critical," said Steve Morgan, a 51-year-old financial adviser from Corte Madera, Calif.

The ad drew criticism despite an attempt by SoFi, whose $4 billion valuation makes it one of Silicon Valley's so-called unicorns, to make the ad less controversial.

Days before the Super Bowl, SoFi cut the final line from its ad after noticing some negative comments on social media. The spot originally ended with a line that said: "Find out if you're great at SoFi.com; you're probably not." In the updated version, the company cut "you're probably not."

SunTrust Banks, which had never aired a national TV ad before this Super Bowl, also came up short. Its spot, which highlighted how it feels to be under financial pressure and how SunTrust can help, was depressing, said ad executives who were polled.

"That ad should run on early morning news programming, not while you are eating chicken wings watching the Super Bowl," said Pierre Lipton, chief creative officer at digital ad firm 360i.

Ads from Mountain Dew, Amazon.com Inc., and Coca-Cola Co., which featured Marvel characters Ant-Man and the Hulk in its spot, are expected to generate plenty of postgame buzz, ad executives said.

A PepsiCo spot for Mountain Dew Kickstart featured a freakish-looking creature that was created by combining three Super Bowl tropes: a puppy, a monkey and a baby.

The spot will play well with millennials, though it will be "polarizing, " said Kait Strovink, associate creative director at Publicis Groupe's SapientNitro.

"Puppymonkeybaby was off-putting but my kids laughed hysterically," said Joshua Schultz, a 41-year-old pharmaceutical executive in Boston.

Meanwhile, Amazon's spot showing celebrities such as Alec Baldwin and Missy Elliott using Alexa--the voice-controlled virtual assistant in Amazon Echo--was praised by ad executives for its ability to entertain as well as get its product message across clearly. "It made the technology look really cool," said Ambika Pai, director of brand strategy at Gyro.

During the past several years, automotive companies have become the biggest spenders in the Super Bowl. Last year, the category spent about $97 million on the game and accounted for more than one-fifth of the ad time in the contest, according to Kantar Media, an ad-tracking firm owned by WPP.

There was no sign of a letup this year, as brands such as Audi, Hyundai, Kia, Jeep, Buick, Acura and Mini Cooper competed for attention, with many enlisting celebrities.

It was a herd of sheep that won over viewers.

Honda Ridgeline's commercial, which highlighted having stereo speakers in the bed of the pickup truck by showing sheep singing "Somebody to Love" by Queen, was "well-executed and charming," said Jonah Disend, chief executive officer of Redscout.

Write to Suzanne Vranica at suzanne.vranica@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 07, 2016 23:19 ET (04:19 GMT)

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