Why are Super Bowl Advertisers So Shy on Branding?

With a $7 million price tag for a 30-second Super Bowl ad, every second counts. This prime-time slot offers brands a golden opportunity to launch new products or build mass awareness, but with countless others competing for attention, standing out requires meticulous planning. Advertisers face the challenge of balancing creativity, emotional appeal, sales and branding. Many opt to avoid using logos or product imagery early on, fearing it could disrupt the emotional buildup or stifle creativity, which ultimately impacts branding. High stakes bring high pressure, and as brands juggle multiple objectives, brand recognition is often the first ball to drop.

The outcomes for branding are concerning. Many brands hesitate to leverage their own distinctive codes, opting instead to feature celebrities, which often results in promoting the star more than the brand itself. While featuring celebrities can boost resonance by attracting attention and lending credibility, the challenge is ensuring that the celebrity doesn’t overshadow the brand. This raises a critical question—whose brand are you really building? Yours, or the Hollywood stars? Fame often overshadows Fluency, System1’s measure of total brand recall. Even ads without celebrities can fail to effectively cue their brand, leaving a lasting impression of the ad itself, but not the brand behind it.

But what does this all mean? Brands spend $7 million for just 30 seconds, yet on average, 20% of Super Bowl viewers cannot recall which brand an ad was for. While an 80% recall rate might seem acceptable, the commercial impact of the 20% who forget is staggering. That’s roughly 24 million potential buyers—the equivalent of the entire population of Australia—who fail to remember your brand. For such a high-stakes investment, can brands really afford to let so many potential customers slip through the cracks? The cost of missed recall is enormous, and for brands striving for impact, it underscores the importance of strategic, effective branding that sticks with viewers long after the game is over.

The Good, the Bad and The Ugly 

When we examine brand recognition trends over the years since 2020, the outlook seems increasingly concerning. Super Bowl ads have seen a steady decline in Fluency, with 2024 marking the lowest point yet. Only 8% of ads reached 95%+ brand recognition, while half of them languished in the low to modest recognition range. This shift highlights a growing challenge for brands looking to make a lasting impact through high-profile advertising.

However, when we break down the data by ad duration, the picture becomes slightly more promising. Longer ads tend to achieve higher brand recognition. On average, a 90-second ad campaign sees a +7% boost in brand Fluency compared to the typical 30-second spot. This means that brands investing in longer ads can take comfort in knowing their efforts are resonating more deeply, with a larger portion of the audience remembering their message. Still, despite this slight improvement, there is still an 11% slippage in these longer campaigns, indicating there is room to further enhance memorability and make a stronger, lasting impact.

While brands are busy juggling creativity, emotional appeal, sales, and branding, they may be taking their eye off the ball. The truth is, they don’t need to compromise at all. When we analyze the Fluency Ratings for over 500 Super Bowl ads from the past five years and map them by Star Rating (long-term brand-building potential), it becomes clear that better branding doesn’t negatively impact emotional appeal. In fact, there’s about a +0.3 increase in Star Rating with every jump in Fluency threshold. Brands achieving 95%+ exceptional brand recognition earn an average Star Rating of 3.2, compared to just 2.1 Stars for those with less than 75% brand recognition. Why is this? the answer lies in neutrality.

In research with Adam Morgan at eatbigfish, Peter Field, and the IPA, Jon Evans, System1’s Chief Customer Officer, sought to understand the root cause of “dull” advertising, quantify its costly impact for advertisers, and help brands overcome it. They identified neutrality as the biggest emotional contributor to dull ads. Neutrality has significant business consequences—when audiences feel nothing, they do nothing. This neutrality was linked to “salesmanship” features such as product focus, flatness, and explicit calls to action. These elements are the opposite of emotive, “showmanship” advertising, which promotes character, storytelling, and a sense of place.

The difference between ads with exceptional brand recognition and low-performing ones is a 10% increase in neutral feelings among the latter. The discovery that low brand recognition also drives neutrality is a significant concern for brands. Not only are fewer people remembering your ad, but those who do are also less likely to take action. Neutral feelings often stem from confusion about the brand’s identity. In Test Your Ad reports, consumer feedback under neutrality frequently includes comments like “I don’t know who this is for or what it’s about.” By failing to brand early or prominently enough, brands risk confusing and disengaging their audience, ultimately diminishing their commercial impact both in the short- and long-term.

Creativity & Brand Codes 

Fortunately, there are a range of effective strategies brands can employ to maximize brand impact and emotional appeal. While a logo or pack shot can typically do the job, we understand that this may not always be the most appealing route. That’s why we’ve mapped out the most effective strategies from Super Bowl campaigns that have driven the greatest impact over the years. These approaches strike a balance between creativity and branding. By learning from these high-performing campaigns, brands can craft ads that are both memorable and impactful.

 

Craft Campaigns around Cultural Codes

Some brands are fortunate enough to become attached to cultural rituals—Guinness is a fantastic example, where consumers challenge each other to split the “G” or the harp of a Guinness in one sip. These phenomena become synonymous with the brand and are typically rooted in human-centric experiences, making them perfect for “showmanship” emotional storytelling.

Take a look at your brand through the lens of your audience: what happy accidents have embedded you into everyday life and culture? It could be as simple as leaving cheese-stained fingers, as with Cheetos, or the ritual of twisting an Oreo to lick the filling. These moments are relatable and relevant, providing a strong foundation for a creative concept.

Oreo and Cheetos are two brands that famously leveraged their cultural significance in their Super Bowl campaigns—Oreo’s 2024 “It All Starts with a Twist” and Cheetos 2020 “Can’t Touch This” both achieved exceptional brand recognition while topping the long-term charts with strong Star Ratings. By tapping into these everyday rituals and cultural moments, these brands connected deeply with audiences, creating memorable ads that not only resonated emotionally but also left a lasting impression of the brand itself.

Don’t Underestimate Sonic Cues

In a recent paper by advertising body Thinkbox and cognitive scientist Dr. Ali Goode, it was found that audio plays a crucial role in recall. When audiences are distracted—whether they’re on their devices, chatting, or moving between rooms—they are 20% more likely to remember what they heard than what they saw. Audio cues, such as repeated soundtracks, jingles, or even vocalizing the brand name aloud, are powerful tools for enhancing memorability.

When paired with additional branding elements like logos, brand colors, characters, and product shots, brands create a strong foundation for ads that audiences won’t easily forget. So, don’t be shy—embrace the sonic power of sound to make your brand unforgettable.

Hellmann’s demonstrated this perfectly in their 2024 Super Bowl spot, earning exceptional brand recognition and strong long-term potential. The campaign features a talking cat who repeatedly vocalizes “mayo” while sitting next to Hellmann’s jars. Every time I hear a cat meow, I instinctively think of Hellmann’s—it’s a genius campaign. The strength of this sonic cue lies not just in the repeated use of sound, but in Hellmann’s confidence to prominently display their product throughout the ad. However, the product isn’t the hero—it’s the catalyst for a comedic and emotionally engaging story. This blend of audio and visual cues, combined with a clever, memorable narrative, makes the ad unforgettable.

Characters Cue Brand Recognition

Brand characters are a time-tested tool for driving brand recall, yet they are surprisingly underused in advertising, particularly during the Super Bowl. These characters are invaluable because they are ownable assets—unlike celebrities, who can sign contracts with multiple brands, stir media controversy, or overshadow your message, brand characters are unique to your identity. They mitigate media risks and ensure your brand stands out.

In his books Lemon and Look out, Orlando Wood explored the emotional importance of brand-owned characters, finding that, on average, they deliver greater long-term business effects compared to celebrities. By developing a unique, recognizable character, brands can foster a lasting emotional connection with their audience, creating a more stable and effective branding strategy.

Their rarity in Super Bowl advertising also presents an opportunity for brands to cut through the clutter and stand out. While audiences may spot Tom Brady and Serena Williams multiple times during the ad break, they’ll likely only encounter one E*Trade talking baby or a Budweiser Clydesdale. Try to recall all the brands those celebrities have endorsed, versus where you’ve seen those brand characters—there’s a stark difference, right?

M&M’s famously had to bring back their talking characters after retiring them, because (drum roll, please) characters work. The M&M’s characters regularly appear in the brand’s global campaigns, consistently achieving exceptional fluency. But here’s the caveat: in our recent research, titled Compound Creativity, which used data from the IPA, we found that the impact of brand characters in their first two years is often understated. Characters need time to breathe and become synonymous with your brand—they aren’t an overnight success. These devices are a long-term strategy for brands looking to build enduring appeal, but remember, when they eventually pay off, they drive significant business effects and lay the groundwork for many more successful Super Bowl ads to come!

Consistency is Key

For brands aiming to maximize their recall by leveraging sonic devices, characters, color codes, or logos, it’s crucial to remember the power of consistency. The more audiences are exposed to your brand codes over time, the stronger the connections they’ll form with them. Take KitKat, for example—the “Have a Break” tagline has been consistently used across their communications, always paired with their iconic red color, distinctive product shape, and logo. This consistency has ingrained these codes deeply into the brand’s identity.

So, lay the foundations early on. Use multiple brand codes rather than relying on just one. For established brands, dig into your archives to identify codes that have been used historically. For newer brands looking to build awareness, leverage multiple codes together and see which ones resonate with your audience over time. If you use these codes prominently and consistently enough, they will ultimately become strongly associated with your brand. Consistency is key to embedding your brand into the minds of your audience, making it easier for them to recognize and recall you when it matters most.

Reese’s 2024 Super Bowl spot is a perfect example of brand consistency in action. The ad opens just as all of their “everyday” advertising does—featuring their bold orange color scheme and the iconic shape of their peanut butter cup. From start to finish, the entire ad is framed by these consistent brand codes, with sonic cues woven throughout, making it impossible to forget who the ad is for.

The key takeaway here is that the orange color and product shape are only distinctive to Reese’s because they’ve been used consistently all year round for years. This consistency builds a strong, recognizable identity. So, refrain from creating Super Bowl ads that look and feel completely different from your brand’s identity throughout the rest of the year. By maintaining these familiar codes, you safeguard brand recall and ensure that your audience can instantly recognize and remember your brand, even in a high-stakes advertising environment like the Super Bowl.

The Safe Bet is to Pre-Test

A proven way to ensure your Super Bowl campaign delivers strong branding is to pre-test it. In 2022, System1 partnered with Boston Beer Company to finetune both the brand and emotional elements of their big game spot. Using System1’s Test Your Ad platform, they evaluated everything from script to finished film, benchmarking their creative against key metrics: emotional response, brand recognition, and short-term sales potential. Remember all those qualities you’re trying to juggle? This tool shows you second-by-second where you’re excelling and where improvements can be made, so no balls are dropped.

Boston Beer Company also utilized System1’s Test Your Ad Guidance consultancy module for actionable recommendations to maximize their ad’s potential. The result? Their ad, “Boston Dynamics,” earned the highest Star Rating of all Super Bowl ads that year, with outstanding scores for Spike (short-term sales potential) and Fluency (brand recognition). Not only did this process help refine their creative, but it also gave them the confidence to know it would drive commercial success.

Contact our team today to make sure your Super Bowl campaign delivers unforgettable impact.

And don’t forget to download our report, “How to Win the Super Bowl,” filled with insights on developing winning creative.

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