Super Bowl

The extraordinarily successful group discounter Groupon succeeded in offending pretty much everybody with its Super Bowl ads, which spoofed worthy causes (for instance, actor Tim Hutton bemoaned the destruction of Tibet's culture while celebrating the Groupon discounted curry fish at a Tibetan restaurant in Chicago), and then with an explanatory letter from its CEO claiming the spots were intended to bring attention to said causes (and that they actually made fun of Groupon).

This links tells you what the Twitter reaction was to the ads.

This link lets you watch them all.

This is what Hulu thought were the winners and losers.

Everyone loves to rank Super Bowl ads, and one neuromarketing firm that did so is Sands Research (see Super Bowl 2010 Ad Winners. Sands uses a combination of EEG, eye-tracking, biometrics, and surveys to calculate a “neuro-engagement factor” for each ad. Does that mean these ads will sell more product? Not necessarily. But here are the top ads accompanied by their measured EEG activity – you can see how the changes in brain activity match up with the action in the commercial.

What makes an engaging television commercial? If you think visual and auditory appeal – action, sound, music, people, color, etc. – you would usually be correct. Ditto for high production values. An exotic location might help, too.

In what is becoming an annual event, Sands Research announced the “winning” commercials for Super Bowl 2010 as determined by their neuromarketing analysis. Volkswagen emerged as #1, well ahead of the competition by Sands’ metrics.