Which advert won the 2020 Super Bowl?
While for American Football fans the Super Bowl is the most important match of the season, for millions more it’s a chance to watch some of the year’s most-hyped adverts.
While the Kansas City Chiefs may have won the game last night, once again it was Microsoft that emerged as the advertising champion with a campaign starring Katie Sowers, the first woman Super Bowl coach.
For the second year running the tech giant topped the scoreboard, bagging the biggest emotional response from US viewers and beating over 75 other ads, according to a survey by marketing research firm System 1.
Microsoft’s Be The One ad, which used archive footage to tell Sowers’ story, topped the chart with a five-star rating.
Jeep pulled ahead of rival car brands to bag second place with its Groundhog Day ad starring Bill Murray.
Crisp brand Doritos completed the top three with its Western-inspired ad, which featured a cowboy dance-off between Lil Nas X and Sam Elliott.
The top 10 most effective Super Bowl ads
| Rank | Brand | Star Rating |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Microsoft | 5.3 |
| 2 | Jeep | 5.2 |
| 3 | Doritos | 5.1 |
| 4 | Cheetos | 4.8 |
| 5 | NFL | 4.7 |
| 6 | Minions | 4.3 |
| 7 | T-Mobile | 4.3 |
| 8 | Reese’s | 4.2 |
| 9 | Secret | 4.1 |
| 10 | Michelob | 4.1 |
The sought-after advertising slots, which can cost millions of pounds, were ranked according to their potential impact on market share growth.
While last year’s selection of ads was dominated by tech firms, there was a more varied range of brands for the 54th Super Bowl.
However, one common factor was an abundance of celebrities, as companies packed famous faces into their campaigns in a bid to charm viewers.
“Celebrities have always been a presence in Super Bowl ads but this year you couldn’t move for them,” said Jon Evans, chief marketing officer at System 1.
“For a lot of brands, quantity was more important than quality, with ad after ad cramming in a load of famous faces for cameos, vignettes and jokes. But the ads which succeeded in using celebs well, are the ones which focused on single celebrities and played on what they were famous for.”