Visible Measures Blog

As part of a joint 2011 Super Bowl research study with YouTube, Visible Measures is tracking the social video performance of the entire flight of the 2011 Super Bowl ads. We're focusing exclusively on the universe of social video – a universe of some 200 video sites, including YouTube, where audiences can engage the brand and get involved with the ad by sharing it with their friends and family, copying and reposting it to another site or their blog, commenting on it or rating it, and much more.

The viewing experience on these video sites is inherently social, offering brands the unique opportunity to create a dialogue and engage their target audiences. And because of the social connection with audiences, brands can drive Earned Media with their ads, increasing campaign reach with trusted, referred views, shared from the original viewers to their friends and family.

The 2011 Super Bowl research study results are based on Visible Measures' True Reach™ methodology. True Reach is the combination of the performance of the original ads uploaded by brands and their agencies and copies uploaded by social video audiences. The result is one, big view count, so we can compare and analyze the campaigns in aggregate.

As you might imagine, the data for the entire flight of the 2011 Super Bowl ads continues to grow and evolve. But as the dust begins to settle, we can provide a snapshot of the overall ad performance and trends and determine who came out on top. 

Before we get to the Top 10 results, here are some of the main themes we're seeing in this year's data. Please note that the data is as of 10 days after the game.

Social video viewership is exploding.

• 2011 Super Bowl views beats all previous Super Bowl views combined. In aggregate, the entire flight of the 2011 Super Bowl ads have generated over 230 million views. Remember, this is in 10 days. We project that 2011 views will eclipse the total combined view counts for the Super Bowl ads from 2009 (99 million views) and 2010 (150 million views). 
• Social video is accelerating while broadcast grows steadily. Super Bowl ads generate half their views in the first three days after the game, putting 2011 projections at more than 300 million views total. This would be a 100% increase from 2010 to 2011 and a 50% increase from 2009 to 2010. Contrast this with broadcast viewership, which has grown from 99 million viewers in 2009, to 106 million views in 2010, to 111 million views in 2011, between 5% -7% annual growth.
• Top 10 views are way up. In aggregate, the Top 10 2011 Super Bowl ads have generated over 96 million views (as of 10 days after the game).  For comparison, the entire flight of the 2009 Super Bowl ads generated a total 99 million views.
• The Top 10 threshold is up dramatically. Doritos' The Best Part ad was able to take 10th place with 5.0 million views this year. In the same time period last year, 5.0 million views would have been good enough for 3rd place (second place was 5.1 million views).  The 2010 threshold at this time last year was 3.0 million views.
• There are more breakout campaigns than ever. Over 60 of this year's campaigns have already generated more than 1 million views. Only 41 2010 campaigns have generated 1 million views to date.
• It's more than the Super Bowl. Social video viewership is exploding year round and across the board.  In 2009, social video advertising generated 820 million views.  In 2010, it generated over 2.7 billion views, an increase of over 230%.  The increase in the 2011 Super Bowl views are part of this trend.
• The auto industry makes a comeback. The automotive industry has four ads in the Top 10 this year. Last year, there was only one automotive ad in the Top 10. Not only that, the auto industry is responsible for over 60% of the views (58.6 million) in the Top 10, lead by VW's 35.7 million. In addition, the top two ads are from the auto industry – VW and Chrysler.

• New creative wins. The top three ads – VW's The Force, Chrysler's Imported from Detroit, and Best Buy's Bieber and Ozzy – are from new creatives. If we set aside the movie trailers, five out of eight ads in the Top 10 were from new creatives. Snickers and Doritos used old creative formulas.  The new creatives in the Top 10 have generated 66 million views compared to old creatives with 17.5 million.
• Humor rules. Seven out of the Top 10 ads employed humor in their creative approach. This shouldn't be a big surprise since most of the ads used humor.
• Getting a head start helps. 2011 Super Bowl ads with teaser spots were able to generate over 17 million views prior to the game. Ads that launched teaser assets generated, on average, 400,000 views before the game.

Rank	Brand	Campaign	Industry	Creative Approach	True Reach™	Watch
1	Volkswagen	The Force	Automotive	Humor	35,789,898
2	Chrysler	Imported from Detroit	Automotive	Dramatic	11,793,749
3	Best Buy	Bieber and Ozzy	Retail	Humor	7,837,162
4	Doritos	Pug Attack	CPG	Humor	6,879,327
5	Paramount	Captain America: The First Avenger	Entertainment	Movie Trailer	6,458,379
6	Paramount	Transformers: Dark of the Moon	Entertainment	Movie Trailer	5,898,879
7	Snickers	Logging	CPG	Humor	5,625,969
8	Bridgestone	Carma	Automotive	Humor	5,614,663
9	Volkswagen	Black Beetle	Automotive	Humor	5,439,253
10	Doritos	The Best Part	CPG	Humor	5,072,103

If you're interested in the complete 2011 Super Bowl Research Study, or if you're an advertiser and would like to participate in the study, please contact our client team. We'd be happy to speak to you about it in more detail. Also be on the lookout for more detailed results, including sentiment analysis, in the near future.