Super Bowl ads becoming more emotional, says El Paso-based neuromarketing researcher

A little boy, dressed as the menacing Darth Vader, stalks the hallways and rooms in his home as his “Imperial March” theme plays.

He struggles to move appliances, his lounging dog, and even a toy with the Force – all to no avail.

Finally, his father parks his Volkswagen Passat in the driveway and the little boy is startled when he turns on the car with the Force – and a little help from his dad’s remote control ignition.

Steve Sands sees this one minute ad, which debuted during the 2011 Super Bowl, as the turning point when Super Bowl ads really started pulling at the heartstrings.

And the emotional commercials have only increased since then.

“The ones that go viral are the emotional ones,” Sands said.

The Science

This year will be the eighth that Sands and his company, El Paso-based Sands Research, have had about 35 subjects watch the 65 to 70 Super Bowl commercials to see which are most effective and memorable. Sands is the founder and Chief Science Officer at Sands Research.

The research the company conducts is different from focus groups because members of focus groups might not tell you the truth out of embarrassment.

Sands uses special equipment – caps with sensors in them and goggles to track eye movement.

Special software also is used to chart a person’s brain activity on a computer screen while the person watches commercials. Brain activity is monitored by temperature scale, with yellow and red indicating the highest activity and black the lowest.

“What we do is analyze the data from the Super Bowl and plot that,” Sands said. “What is the emotion that happened at this particular moment? And for TV commercials, we’re not going to get up and run away from a TV commercial. It’s very subtle and that’s why we have to record the brain activity, to see that subtle response.”

Sands is working on a study that will show the growth of emotional Super Bowl ads since he’s been studying the ads. He added that a Memphis professor has compared Sands’ Super Bowl ad research to some media outlets and has shown that Sands’ is more accurate in showing which ads were successful.

What Works, What Doesn’t

The little Darth Vader-Passat commercial wasn’t doing so well, according to the research.

“You could see the emotion go negative, negative, negative and then it pops up when he’s successful,” Sands said.

While people remember the commercial and watched it over and over again – more than 61 million times on YouTube alone – Sands said that the company’s branding got lost in the commercial and sometimes wasn’t realized by the viewer until later.

Budweiser is a company that Sands says does well with its branding in commercials and also gets the emotional response from viewers.

“The (Budweiser) Clydesdales are always in the top five commercials and everybody loves the Clydesdales,” Sands said. “Everybody loves dogs. And I think the next one is going to be a dog and a Clydesdale and a storyline that goes along with that.”

Sands hasn’t watched any of this year’s Super Bowl ads that have been released online – but yes, Budweiser’s Clydesdale ad does feature a return of last year’s puppy.

“It’ll be, I don’t know, I can’t predict until I do the study, but it will probably be up at the top,” Sands said.

With emotional commercials on the upswing, that means other types are on the way out.

Years ago you saw more of the sexual approach in ads.

“Actually, those don’t work that well. You heard it here: Sex doesn’t sell,” Sands said with a laugh.

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Although emotional commercials are effective, there does need to be a balance.

“That’s where the creatives come in and their ability to keep things at a right level,” Sands said.

Sands studied some commercials in Japan which turned out to be too negative for viewers.

“Basically the storyline was if you don’t buy our product, you’re going to die,” Sands said. “And they could not understand why people were so negative against it. In fact, they were negative many minutes after the recording. That was a no brainer.”

What To Keep In Mind As You Watch Super Bowl Ads “Emotions have momentum to them,” Sands said. “And you have to have a beat to the emotions — typically about three beats within 30 seconds is about all you can get in there. And if you put too much in, and you overdo it, you’ll send your viewer off into a negative space and associate your product with negative.”
“You want to think like somebody who wants to make money from this commercial,” Sands said. “Look at the last five-10 seconds of the commercial. See whether you can recall the brand or if there’s any indication what the product is.”
“Most of the time the creatives put the branding at the beginning or they don’t put it anywhere,” Sands said. “And look and see how much branding there is and whether it’s associated with positive moments. Because what we know, is if your branding is done at a positive emotion it’s likely to be recalled. Negative it’s going to be suppressed.”