Industry Study

Industry Study
Super Bowl 2015 YouTube Ads
Boston | New York | Chicago | San Francisco | London
www.pixability.com | 1.888.749.8433 | info@pixability.com | @pixability
Key Insights
• Super Bowl 2015 ads published on YouTube
accumulated a total of 133M views.
• Ad teasers published before the game to
increase anticipation totaled another 51M views.
• The most popular ad was Budweiser’s “Lost Dog”
ad with over 21M views. It was published 5 days
prior to Super Bowl Sunday.
• The biggest surprise hit was video game Clash
of Clan’s “Revenge” ad featuring Liam Neeson,
which gained more than 8.2M views overnight
and had the highest number of Likes and
comments on YouTube out of all Super Bowl ads.
The Top Super Bowl Ads on YouTube
Data as per February 2, 2015 10am
Super Bowl 2015 YouTube Ads © 2015 2
The Top Super Bowl Ads on YouTube (continued)
Clash of Clan’s “Revenge” ad featuring Liam Neeson received the most views
since the kickoff, despite being published during the game itself
Title
Total Views
Views Since
Kickoff
2015 Budweiser Super Bowl Commercial “Lost Dog” | Budweiser #BestBuds
21,036,601
2,942,230
Bud Light Super Bowl 2015 Commercial – Real Life PacMan #UpForWhatever
14,153,768
1,261,576
#KimsDataStash | T-Mobile Commercial
13,108,762
1,990,568
BMW i3 – “Newfangled Idea”
12,454,845
3,870,916
Clash of Clans: Revenge (Official TV Commercial)
8,241,981
8,241,981
SNICKERS® – “The Brady Bunch”
7,896,483
2,497,062
Mercedes-Benz “Fable” Commercial: 60
6,571,159
2,215,444
Welcome to the New Age | Hyundai Canada | The Big Game XLIX
3,353,542
709,067
How Great I Am | Presented by The Bold New Camry | Toyota
3,110,525
392,510
McDonald’s: Super Bowl XLIX Pay With Lovin’
2,886,647
1,987,538
Publishing ads on YouTube well in advance was the best strategy
to attract a large online audience
• On average brands posted their videos on
YouTube 7.8 days before the Super Bowl.
Preview
• Brands followed three different strategies for
ad publication, with very different results:
Teaser
Surprise
Full ad published on
YouTube in advance of
Super Bowl Sunday
Teaser published on
YouTube, actual ad
published during game
No teasers, ad published
during the game
2.9M Views
32K Social Shares
702K Views
4K Social Shares
900K Views
7.8K Social Shares
on average per video
on average per video
on average per video
Note: The relative success of this strategy was driven
by Clash of Clan’s outlier success with Liam Neeson.
Super Bowl 2015 YouTube Ads © 2015 3
Super Bowl Ads: Content Type
• Emotional advertising proved highly effective
this year with ads that featured primarily
emotional appeals (excluding inspirational ads)
netting on average 4.5M views.
• Advertising with inspirational messaging,
attempted by a number of brands including
Microsoft, performed only modestly for views
with an average of 1.1M. These ads were slightly
above the overal Super Bowl average in terms
of sharing.
• Humor remained a popular choice for content and
largely worked: ads featuring primarily humorous
content generated 2.7M views on average.
• Celebrity endorsers did as well as other content
on average, but there was considerable variance
based on how famous a star was featured in
the ad.
Emotional and Funny Ads Still Work Best
Emotional and funny ads not only attracted the most views on average,
but also got by far the highest engagement levels in terms of Likes and
comments on YouTube.
Ad Type
Average Views
Average Likes
Average Comments
Emotional
4,473,278
16,513
1,680
Funny
2,696,384
11,947
782
Inspirational
1,106,930
1,410
129
Entertainment
2,075,256
2,679
289
Trailer
631,452
3,066
271
Informative
177,642
73
24
Super Bowl 2015 YouTube Ads © 2015 4
Super Bowl Ads: Celebrities
• Celebrity endorsers did as well as other content
on average, but there was considerable variance
based on how famous a star was featured.
• Successful Celebrity Endorsers:
• Less Successful Celebrity Endorsers:
–– Pete Rose (35K)
–– Wix retired football players (55K)
–– Kim Kardashian (13M)
–– Katie Couric & Bryant Gumbel (12.5M)
–– Liam Neeson (8.3M)
–– Danny Trejo & Steve Buscemi (7.9M)
Super Bowl Ads: Industry Performance
• Beer ads received 6X as many average views, and
24X as many Facebook shares as Automotive.
• There were three times as many auto ads as beer
ads but their absolute number of views is still
lower (35.8M vs 32.4M).
• AB Inbev, this year’s exclusive beer advertiser,
racked up multiple wins with its commercials.
They averaged 12M across their multiple spots,
in addition to holding the number one spot
with “Lost Dog.”
• The ads for mobile games were quite effective,
averaging ~5M views.
Beer ads as well as ads for mobile games were quite effective.
Super Bowl 2015 YouTube Ads © 2015 5
Beer and Video Games Brands Performed Best
Average
Views
Average
Likes
Average
Comments
Average Social
Shares
Total Views
per Industry
Athletic Apparel
658,947
1,150
61
31,472
1,976,842
Automotive
2,311,843
2,250
283
10,128
32,365,801
Beer
11,957,924
35,633
3,038
191,697
35,873,771
Beverage
357,798
90
9
2,595
357,798
Beverage (non-alcoholic)
1,726,873
4,163
484
14,161
3,453,746
Cellular
4,025,700
5,666
930
11,036
16,102,801
Computer
1,439,669
1,632
153
3,144
2,879,337
Consumer Goods
402,986
836
59
15,432
1,208,959
Diet
24,020
54
8
50
24,020
Financial Services
122,619
352
34
1,432
122,619
Food
2,172,073
3,113
211
45,960
10,860,364
Insurance
599,211
1,959
299
2,507
4,194,477
Movie
839,724
4,174
368
14,695
9,236,964
Restaurant
1,501,834
2,165
285
13,201
3,003,668
Tax
219,565
115
45
549
219,565
TV trailer
58,603
19
3
86
234,413
Vacation
74,167
733
200
3,492
74,167
Video Game
3,340,712
52,539
2,652
18,457
10,022,136
Website & Domain
70,409
96
24
234
140,818
Women's Apparel
1,503,213
2,412
171
4,582
1,503,213
Super Bowl Ads: Social Activity
• Overall, videos get shared 10x as much on
Facebook as they do on Twitter.
• The most shared was Budweiser’s “Lost Dog”
with more than 500k shares.
• The second most shared was SNICKERS’s ®
“The Brady Bunch” ad with 208k shares. Super Bowl 2015 YouTube Ads © 2015 6
For more information on this study, or to request additional data on Super Bowl 2015
YouTube Ads, please email info@pixability.com.
Proven YouTube Ad Performance. Powered by Pixability.
Pixability is an ad buying and video marketing platform for YouTube. Many of the world’s top brands and agencies
depend on Pixability’s award-winning programmatic media technology for effective YouTube campaigns with complete
transparency and reporting accuracy. Pixability enables media professionals to plan smarter placements, run faster
campaigns, and see better results. Pixability is headquartered in Boston with additional presences in New York, Chicago,
San Francisco, and London.
Boston | New York | Chicago | San Francisco | London | www.pixability.com | 1.888.749.8433 | info@pixability.com | @pixability
D
-ST
PIX
04
R-0
PE
-SU