Top Takeaways from Top March Madness Ads
It’s nearly that time again – the NCAA’s annual basketball tournament is around the corner on the heels of advertising’s biggest night, the Super Bowl.
At System1, our Test Your Ad Premium database has over 150,000 ads, providing us a closer look at the most effective ads at key cultural moments like March Madness. Which brands score highest on brand-building potential? Which advertisers make it into the bracket year after year, demonstrating creative consistency? And what are the creative elements that enable them to emotionally engage audiences?
We’re taking a deeper dive into a few winning themes of recent years:
Cast an All-Star Team
Celebrity spokespeople aren’t an effectiveness guarantee, but the right hired devices can grab attention and entertain audiences. What both Jersey Mike’s and Capital One do well is leverage the same famous faces time and time again. In our recent report, The Magic of Compound Creativity, we discuss the importance of consistency in advertising. One of the three core principles, consistent executive, notes tenure of hired devices.
Sandwich chain Jersey Mike’s has used actor Danny DeVito across numerous ads, and has consistently advertised during the tournament. The brand’s 2023 ad “Arm of the Slicer” is a fun twist on a classic rock soundtrack and it wisely leans into DeVito’s comedic talents. The brand scored a strong 4.5-Stars on long-term brand-building potential and exceptional on short-term sales potential.
Capital One, meanwhile, frequently uses Jennifer Garner in its ads, and during basketball season, Spike Lee, Charles Barkley and others are often in the mix. In 2023, the brand’s “On the Road Again” spot, featuring Willie Nelson, topped our March Madness rankings with a 4.8-Star result, well above the 1.9-Star average for the Credit Cards & Credit Checking Services category in the US. Thanks to the familiarity of its spokespeople, Capital One ensures that star power doesn’t overshadow the brand, achieving 90% on brand recognition in our testing.
Add Humor to the Roster
In their research, The Extraordinary Cost of Dull, Peter Field, Adam Morgan of eatbigfish and System1’s Jon Evans, ring the alarm on the dullness epidemic in advertising. The most common response to advertising is actually a lack of response – neutrality. And given that ‘the more people feel, the more they buy,’ advertising needs to elicit emotion in audiences. One way to evoke positive emotions like happiness and surprise is to use humor.
Tide and Saatchi & Saatchi NY landed in our top ads of 2023 thanks to their March Madness ad starring actor Kumail Nanjiani. Reminiscent of the brand’s meta 2018 Super Bowl ad “It’s a Tide Ad,” which surprised viewers by revealing that ads that didn’t initially appear to be for laundry actually were advertising Tide. The 2023 spot puts messy user-generated content into the spotlight with Nanjiani popping up to exclaim that folks are going to need Tide to remove their clothing stains. Tide achieved a 4.6-Star Rating and an exceptional Spike Rating (short-term sales potential) thanks to the humorous approach.
Chili’s is another brand that knows how to make viewers laugh. Its March Madness ad promoting its meal deal leveraged Brian McKnight to sing an updated version of his classic hit “Back at One.” The surprising part? 16-time Grammy nominated singer McKnight is masquerading as a Chili’s waiter, putting on performances to help diners decide their orders, signing autographs and taking selfies with fans. Later that same year, the brand brought boy band Boyz II Men together to sing a new spin on their “Baby Back Ribs” jingle. Humor, especially when combined with nostalgia, delivers. The Brian McKnight commercial scored exceptional on short-term sales potential, exactly what Chili’s intended by putting its meal deal in the spotlight.
Put your Fluent Devices Forward
Recurring characters, coined by System1’s Orlando Wood as “fluent devices,” are long-term brand-building winners. They quickly signal the brand and drive lots of intense, positive feelings among consumers. And they’re yet another component of consistent executive in our Compound Creativity research.
When you hear the word Aflac, you probably think of the white duck immediately. And Geico is practically synonymous with the Gecko at this point, thanks to both brands’ dedication to using these characters for decades and across the full media mix.
Aflac’s March Madness ad featuring legendary coaches Dawn Staley and Coach K and the famous duck scored 3.1-Stars, a big step up from the health insurance category’s average of 1.9-Stars. It also scored exceptional on short-term sales potential and 97% on brand recognition, thanks in large part to the familiarity of the Aflac duck.
Create with Confidence
Want to ensure your next campaign is a slam dunk? Pre-testing your creative with consumers can unlock qualitative and quantitative insights around brand-building potential, predicted short-term sales uplift and strength of branding, based on consumers’ emotional responses to the work.
System1’s Test Your Ad platform and our team of advertising experts can help you test early-stage concepts, scripts, animatics and more to help you Create with Confidence.
