How Effective Were the 2010 Super Bowl Car Commercials?

Check out our rundown of all of the 2011 Superbowl car commercials

If you are going to spend $2.5 million on anything, you are going to want to make absolutely sure that you're getting your money's worth. And if that princely sum is going to be used to buy a 30 second commercial spot during Super Bowl XLIV (the most watched program in television history), you have even more incentive to make sure that your message gets across to consumers and that the immediate exposure generated by the spot actually translates into increased recognition and/or interest in your brand. And while the effectiveness of television advertising can be notoriously hard to judge, there are other indicators that can help us determine which ads got the most "Bang" for their buck and which ones dropped the ball. With the help of some of our internal traffic stats, we were able to put together a rough estimate of the overall effectiveness of the various car commercials that aired during this year's big game.

There were six cars advertised in this year's Super Bowl: Hyundai Sonata, Dodge Charger, Kia Sorento, Audi A3 TDI, Honda Accord Crosstour and a generic ad for Volkswagen. How much of a buzz did these ads create for the advertised cars? To figure this out we looked at traffic on CarsDirect and developed an effectiveness index based on time advertised and traffic. The effectiveness index is determined by comparing the percent traffic increase to the exposure each brand received during the super bowl. Keep in mind that overall traffic to our site was down about 6% on Super Bowl Sunday as people traded in car shopping for football, chips and beer.

Hyundai Sonata Super Bowl Commercials

• Hyundai Super Bowl Traffic Change*: +24%
• Sonata Super Bowl Traffic Change*: +166%
• Seconds Advertised: Three 30 second ads plus in-game sponsorships
• Effectiveness Index: 1.51

Hyundai featured three 30 second ads during the super bowl, the most memorable of which was for the Hyundai Sonata and featured Brett Favre in self-parody mode (seems to be his new M.O. these days). In the past, Hyundai's ads have usually gone for a more serious tone. This year they took a more humorous approach with their Brett Favre super bowl commercial. The ad featured Favre winning the 2020 super bowl MVP and pondering retirement (once again). While at first glance it may seem like the ad didn't draw enough of a link between Favre and their brand (I didn't even remember which company that he'd been advertising for), it seems like the collective good-will towards Favre (as well as in-game sponsorships) translated into an effective overall Hyundai Super Bowl ad campaign.

Note: Traffic to the Hyundai Genesis, which Hyundai targeted in the 2008 & 2009 Super Bowl was up 50% despite no ad coverage. The Hyundai Super Bowl 2010 ad seems to have helped it out tremendously.

Kia Sorento Super Bowl Commercial

• Kia Super Bowl Traffic Change*: -12%
• Sorento Super Bowl Traffic Change*: +56%
• Advertisements: One 60 second ad
• Effectiveness Index: .93

Continuing the trend towards playfulness and humor in the Super Bowl ads this year, the Kia Sorento Commercial, titled "Childhood Friends," follows four children's toys (apparently from the TV show Yo Gabba Gabba) as they head out for what seems to be a bachelor party in Las Vegas for the Sock Monkey. Whether it was the catchy theme song, the colorful story line, or the fact that a lot of parents recognized the characters from their children's favorite TV show, the Kia Super Bowl Commerical was generally well received and helped increase interest in the family-friendly crossover SUV.

Note: For those wondering what that catchy Kia Sorento Commercial Song was, it was "How You Like Me Now" by The Heavy

Audi A3 TDI Commercial

• Audi Super Bowl Traffic Change*: +13%
• A3 Super Bowl Traffic Change*: +47 %
• Advertisements: One 60 second ad
• Effectiveness Index: .78

One of the more polarizing Super Bowl commercials came from Audi, whose "Green Police" ad for the clean diesel Audi A3 TDI featured an army of Eco-friendly cops arresting people for various infractions against the environment. Observers couldn't seem to decide if Audi was mocking the smug self-seriousness of the environmental movement, or trumpeting the fact that their new clean diesel car would pass their strict standards. And while the message of the Audi Super Bowl commercial may have been a bit muddled, the mild controversy surrounding the ad seemed to have people talking - which IS one of the aims of any good marketing campaign.

Note: The Audi Green Police song was actually a send up of the Cheap Trick song "Dream Police"

Honda Accord Crosstour Commercial

• Honda Super Bowl Traffic Change*: +3%
• Accord Crosstour Super Bowl Traffic Change*: +14 %
• Advertisements: One 30 second ad
• Effectiveness Index: 0.46

With its emphasis on the large amount of cargo room in its brand new Crosstour, Honda's "Squirrel" used eye catching animation to show how much storage room their new model offers. With its Kool & The Gang provided Honda Crosstour song and its cute main character, the ad seemed to get its message across. But the public's lack of familiarity with Honda's Crosstour and the fact that the car doesn't even show up in the ad until the very end may have lowered viewer interest and led to a less-than-optimal effectiveness rating.

Dodge Charger Commercial

• Dodge Super Bowl Traffic Change*: -7%
• Charger Super Bowl Traffic Change*: +24 %
• Advertisements: One 60 second ad
• Effectiveness Index: 0.4

Appealing to the inner misogynist in all new car buyers (there actually seemed to be a lot of commercials across the board this year that were demeaning to women), the Dodge Charger Super Bowl ad, "Man's Last Stand," spouted off a huge list of things that men are forced to do in order to put up with the women in their lives - which supposedly allows them to "drive the car I want to drive." Now I'm not sure if it was because the Dodge Charger has been around for a while, meaning people didn't need to rush to the Internet to find out about it, or that they effectively alienated a good portion of the viewing audience (yes, women watch the Super Bowl too), but the result was the lowest effectiveness index for an ad that targeted a specific car model.

Volkswagen Super Bowl Commercial

• Volkswagen Super Bowl Traffic Change*: +13%
• (No specific model targeted)
• Advertisements: One 60 second ad
• Effectiveness Index: 0.22

The main reason for the low effectiveness rating for the VW Super Bowl commercial may have more to do with the fact that they didn't target one specific model in their advertisement, and instead went for an overall brand campaign. The ad, titled "Punch Dub" or "Super Bowl Punch," showed people from all walks of life punching their companions in the arm after seeing a different colored Volkswagen. At first I thought they were advertising a new Bug (isn't that how the "Punch Buggy" game goes?) - but I guess the new version of the game extends to any Volkswagen car (that's going to make for some pretty sore arms). And the addition of Tracy Morgan and Stevie Wonder at the end may not have made much sense (to be fair, nothing that Tracy Morgan does makes much sense), it did add a little humor and star power to the mix.

Results:

Out of all the cars advertised on the Super Bowl, Hyundai had the greatest Effectiveness Index: 1.51, 0.58 higher than the Kia Sorento's second place index of .93. While Internet search traffic is only one of the factors in accessing the effectiveness of an ad campaign, Hyundai's success can most likely be attributed to a solid advertisement and the relative obscurity of Hyundai's luxury sedan. Hyundai is still shaking off its reputation of poor quality and their ads really helped solidify them as a quality player in the automotive market. Also, the Brett Favre Super Bowl commercial was probably one of the best out there.

The worst ad effectiveness was for the Dodge Charger which scored only a .40. Some of this could be attributed to the fact that the Dodge Charger is a better known car than Hyundai or Kia so viewers didn't feel the need to rush out and look the car up online. It also could be that Saints fans like Hyundai and Colts fans like Dodge and the Colts fans were too depressed to look up their car online, but we don't have any data to support that, just a few sad Colts fans that like Dodges.

While next day traffic stats and our own "Effectiveness Index" are certainly not the only indicator of the successfulness of a Super Bowl ad campaign, they can give us some unique insights into which ads seemed to generate the most consumer interest and help us speculate as to the reasons why. And while we certainly won't see any drop off in the number of car related ads in next year's Super Bowl, we may start to see companies put more effort into determining the ROI of these types of big media advertising buys.

*All traffic percentages are Super Bowl Sunday's traffic compared to average daily traffic over the past 30 days.