The best 2023 Super Bowl commercials
Editor’s note: Rachel Rodgers and Pedr Howard are SVPs, creative excellence at Ipsos. This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared under the title “These were the 8 best Super Bowl ads in 2023. Here’s why, according to hard data from Ipsos."
For many of us, the commercials are the highlight of the Super Bowl: Brands bring their A game (and their A++ budgets). This year we saw an avalanche of celebrities, references to movies and shows and musical hijacking, while tearjerkers and purpose-oriented ads were missing.
PopCorners was the leader of leaders, having the highest creative effectiveness measured out of the last three Super Bowls.
How ads were rated
Ipsos leveraged its depth and breadth to analyze the ads through both traditional and cutting-edge methods – from surveys to social listening to live communities. Ipsos combined four different data sources to provide a fast, agile and accurate look at the holistic performance of Super Bowl commercials:
- Creative | Spark: 22 Super Bowl ads and trailers were selected for robust evaluation on Ipsos' ad-testing platform, with a sample size of 150 general population respondents per ad. Creative | Spark fuels the creative process by helping advertisers and agencies quickly learn, evaluate and optimize creative to power brand growth.
- Ipsos Online Communities: We used our syndicated community, Fresh Lab, of 6,000 members across the United States to track real-time ad sentiment during the Super Bowl through a series of discussions and video feedback.
- Fast Facts: After the game, Ipsos surveyed 1,000 adults on its Ipsos Digital platform. Fast Facts lets you create your survey questions and get fast answers from our quality sample. View results in an interactive dashboard, export charts in PowerPoint or tables in Excel.
- SIA and Synthesio: The Ipsos Social Intelligence Analytics and Synthesio team used their AI-enabled consumer intelligence platform to track and analyze 2.2 million Super Bowl-related social mentions.
This combination of approaches provides a more robust and nuanced picture of Super Bowl success, leading to the eight awards for the top-performing ads of Super Bowl LVII in 2023.
PopCorners wins the Happy CFO Award
This ad merits a broad smile from the CFO of Frito-Lay this morning. The use of the Breaking Bad theme and characters hooked viewers early and kept them highly engaged throughout. This ad is very likely to keep people talking based on its outstanding social power, a good thing since it has the highest sales potential of any Super Bowl ad tested in the last three years, with a Creative Effect Index of 216 – far above the average of 70-130.
Dunkin’ wins the Best Celebrity Sighting Award
While celebrities abound in this year’s game, “Bennifer” stood out as a pair working on multiple levels to drive effectiveness for Dunkin’. Consumers recognized Ben as a legitimate Dunkin’ drinker thanks to constant paparazzi photos of him enjoying the brand. Jennifer Lopez’s inclusion tapped into both nostalgia and current pop culture simultaneously. This resulted in the highest volume of social mentions by total conversation volume during the game with Ben Affleck being the most discussed celebrity cameo in Synthesio's AI-enabled consumer intelligence data.
Tubi wins the Misfit Award
Tubi delivered some of the most polarizing and stand-out advertising of the night, earning the Misfit Award. Some related quite strongly to the “rabbit hole” concept, while others were left confused. Nonetheless, this tactic managed to earn breakthrough from viewers in Creative | Spark testing and generated a strong social response. The follow-up convention-breaking tactic in the fourth-quarter, showing a fake smart TV interface interrupting the game, had us all yelling at the TV and reaching for our remotes, resulting in the highest amount of negative mentions in Synthesio's social-listening data.
GM and Netflix win the Best Brand Partnership Award
Viewers felt the collaboration between electrical vehicle innovation (GM) and content (Netflix) was attention-grabbing and entertaining. In the Creative | Spark testing, this ad was highly memorable and the live community gave it the greatest brand partnership recognition and among the highest success scores at 8.57/10.
“It helps me to see that EV technology is here to stay and is becoming part of the 'norm,’” says an online community member.
Disney wins the Best Use of Nostalgia Award
Celebrating 100 is a big deal. Disney wowed fans young and old with a dazzling look across all its movie franchises. A highly emotional story using a mix of clips, animation and even some voice over from Walt himself, the ad helped to drive very strong feelings for the brand with an Equity Effect Index of 184 in the Creative | Spark testing.
Google Pixel 7 wins the Nailed the Brief Award
Google stuck to its strategy of leadership in picture technology. An engaging (and lengthy!) product demo shows its innovation and provides a strong competitive reason to switch. The Creative | Spark data indicated that Google can expect solid sales impact, with a Creative Effect Index of 130, driven by a clearly understood message.
Planters wins the Best Use of Brand Assets Award
The Planters mascot was on center stage, getting roasted by roastmaster Jeff Ross himself. The clever use of this highly recognizable brand asset kept the audience entertained and included a throwback to a previous big game spot. All jokes aside, this ad is one to snack on. A Creative Effect Index of 162 in Creative | Spark data shows its very strong short-term potential to drive sales.
T-Mobile wins the Best Music Playback Award
T-Mobile put John Travolta center stage with a highly entertaining musical number. Using Grease as the inspiration, he partnered with T-Mobile celebs Zach Braff and Donald Faison to sing their hearts out. The result: T-Mobile earned fifth place in unaided brand recall on the Ipsos Digital platform. The audience rewarded the performance with high marks for both brand performance and affinity, as shown in the equity effect index result of 163 in Creative | Spark data.
No award was given for the Most Inclusive ad in 2023
Nearly all people of color in our online community felt that they could not relate to the people in the ads this year. Some expressed a longing for more diversity, and though they enjoyed brands’ use of celebrities, felt their lifestyles aren’t comparable to the lives of everyday people, hindering relevant and authentic representation.