7th Annual Brand Bowl Brings Gen Z Insights to Super Bowl Ads

Ads that featured strong, positive emotions and uplifting messages were among those that received the highest scores from the Gen Z focus group participating in the 7^th annual Brand Bowl, a collaboration among the College of Journalism and Communication’s Department of Advertising, the Atlas Lab, and the Ad Society student organization.

Pfizer’s “Knock Out Cancer,” the NFL’s “I Am Somebody,” and Nike’s “So Win” ads received the top average scores of 8.4 or higher (out of 10 possible points), while a pair of Tubi ads and a bizarre Coffee-Mate ad received the lowest scores at 3.5 or lower.  

A group of 40 student focus group participants rated more than 60 ads as they appeared in real-time during Super Bowl LIX, while a team of students from the Atlas Lab used Talkwalker, a social media listening tool, to find information about the social media reactions to each ad. A white paper summarizing their results is available here.

According to Nathan Carpenter, Director of the Atlas Lab, “social media reactions and focus group scores did not necessarily agree. This highlights the need for mixed methods research when analyzing consumer sentiment.” Examples included a flurry of negative reactions to the highly rated Pfizer ad, most of which were driven by critics of Pfizer’s vaccines. The NFL’s “I Am Somebody” ad was well-received in the focus group but generated an unexpectedly large number of negative reactions. Atlas Lab students found these negative reactions to be related to social media posts using the ad’s catchphrase “I Am Somebody” in jest.

The top five ads were:

1. PFIZER – “KNOCK OUT CANCER”
SCORE: 8.74 / 10

• Pfizer started the Super Bowl off with an emotional bang with their ad for “Knock Out,” telling the inspirational story of a little boy who has just beaten cancer. Dressed as a boxer and with the city cheering him on, he runs down his street in victory and into the arms of his mom.
• The Pfizer “Knock Out” advertisement had a total of 25.3K results and 119.9K engagements across the social web. Surprisingly, approximately 68.2% of the posts were scored as having negative sentiment, with only 8.3% being positive. Potential reach was 441.4M. Most of the negative posts came from political influencers or political organizations that were attacking Pfizer’s vaccines, a major disconnect from the positive reaction of the Gen Z focus group.

2. NFL – “I AM SOMEBODY”
SCORE: 8.42 / 10

• NFL stars Demario Davis, Arik Armstead and Adam Thielen partner with the league to highlight the NFL’s programs impacting children’s futures. The ad centers around the uplifting saying “I Am Somebody” and finishes it off with “It Takes All Of Us,” highlighting the impact of confidence and community in the shaping of kids’ lives.
• The NFL spot had 1K results and 1.3K engagements from across the social web. The ad had 37.2% positive engagement, 25.1% negative engagements and a potential reach of 91.7M. The term “I am somebody” became split on socials as a way to either highlight its heartwarming nature or as a joke that reinforces the importance of confidence.

3. NIKE – “SO WIN”
SCORE: 8.4 / 10

• Nike’s “So Win” calls on women athletes to embrace confidence and celebrate the power of sport. Voiced by Doechii, the ad features Sha’Carri Richardson, A’ja Wilson, Jordan Chiles, Sophia Smith, and Caitlin Clark, among others. With their new mantra being “So win, whatever it takes,” Nike calls on women to lead despite being told who they can’t be.
• The ad had a total of 44.7K results and 299.8K engagements from across the social web. Approximately 47.1% of the posts were scored as having positive sentiment and 10.4% were negative. Despite any negativity, Nike made waves at the Super Bowl as the potential reach of the advertisement was 602.9M, with a majority praising Nike for continuing to uplift and support women athletes.

4. HOMES.COM – “NOT SAYING WE’RE THE BEST”
SCORE: 8.38 / 10

• Homes.com’s comedic ad features Morgan Freeman, Schitt’s Creek’s Daniel Levy and SNL’s Heidi Gardner trying to find loopholes to legally say “Homes.com is the best” in a commercial.
• The ad saw a total of 1.1K results and 1.7K overall engagement. The sentiment was 29% positive, with the majority of the comments being about Morgan Freeman’s cameo in the spot and 29.7% negative, mostly discussing how Morgan Freeman was too good to be featured. Homes.com’s ads had an overall potential reach of 286 million.

5. MICHELOB ULTRA – “THE ULTRA HUSTLE”
SCORE: 8.38 / 10

• Michelob Ultra’s “The Ultra Hustle” ad features Willem Dafoe and Catherine O’Hara as “pickleball hustlers,” effortlessly outplaying celebrity athletes and real pickleball pros. With their win, they claim a cooler of Michelob Ultra.
• The ad generated 3.9K engagements, with sentiment skewing overwhelmingly positive (54%) compared to only 6.7% negative. The primary drivers of positive sentiment included the ad’s humor, casting choices and its incorporation of pickleball. The engagement pattern indicates a strong spike in interest around the ad’s release.

The bottom five ads were:

1.M3GAN 2.0 – “OFFICIAL TEASER”
SCORE: 4.02 / 10

• M3gan 2.0 was teased with the killer doll dancing to Chappell Roan’s “Femininomenon” before very creepily asking “Did you miss me?” and winking at the audience.
• The commercial had 1.2K results and 16.5K engagements. The ad saw 13.1% positive engagements, 15.5 % negative engagements and a potential reach of 205.6M. The commercial discourse focused on speculation of whether it was computer generated and its unexpected placement between sentimental ads.

2. FANDUEL – “KICK OF DESTINY – ELI’S PARADE”
SCORE: 3.94

• The FanDuel ad features Peyton and Eli Manning participating in the FanDuel “Kick of Destiny” competition, with Eli winning. Eli’s victory resulted in him riding on a foot-shaped parade float being pulled by his brother.
• The FanDuel ad did not gain enough attention to have a notable spike. There were a total of 2.4K results, with 14.9K engagements. Roughly 4.2% of the posts were scored as having negative sentiment, with 3.5% being positive, showing that it did not generate much of an emotional reaction. The potential reach was 430.1M.

3. TUBI – “COWBOY HEAD”
SCORE: 3.52 / 10

• Tubi’s “Cowboy Head” Super Bowl ad, part of their “If it’s in you, it’s in here” campaign, features a character with a fleshy cowboy hat-shaped head, symbolizing the Western film genre.
• The Tubi ad generated a total of 956 results and 3.4K engagements. The sentiment was mostly negative at 63.6% and hardly positive (5.5%), with most comments addressing the disturbing nature of a fleshy cowboy hat. The overall potential reach was 145.8M.

4. COFFEE-MATE – “COLD FOAM”
SCORE: 3.48 / 10

• Coffee-Mate’s first-ever Super Bowl ad featured their cold foam product line and a dancing tongue voiced by Shania Twain. The hypnotizing ad caused an uproar across social media platforms, with some viewers even going as far as to question how the spot left the drawing board.
• When extracting the performance results of the ad, there were a total of 6.7K engagements, with the discussion of the ad being mostly negative. Approximately 5.5% of the sentiments were positive, 35.1% were neutral, and 59.4% were negative. With a potential reach of 454M, Coffee-Mate made a lasting impact at the 2025 Super Bowl, despite criticisms of its weirdness.

5. TUBI – “Z-SUITE”
SCORE: 3.48 / 10

• Tubi attempted to give the Superbowl a Gen-Z kick with its rogue TikTok-style promo for the workplace comedy “The Z-Suite.” The ad features Lauren Graham from Gilmore Girls, who will star in the new workplace program and Tubi’s first scripted comedy.
• Tubi’s Z-Suite ad generated 114 results and only 41 engagements. The ad’s brevity and confusing format could have caused it to be overlooked by viewers. The engagement it did generate has 50% negative sentiment with viewers expressing confusion over the content of the ad. The vertical video attempted to appeal to a Gen Z audience, but missed the mark due to its clichés.

The College of Journalism and Communications began Brand Bowl under the guidance of Dan Windels in 2019. This is the second consecutive year the event has been held in the Atlas Lab.

Category: Atlas Lab Insights
Tagged: Advertising Atlas Lab Dan Windels Nathan Carpenter Social Media
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