8th Annual Brand Bowl Delivers Advertisement Wins and Losses According to Gen Z  

On Super Bowl Sunday, the Atlas Lab hosted the 8^th annual Brand Bowl, an exciting event in collaboration with the College of Journalism and Communication’s Department of Advertising and the Ad Society student organization.  

The ads that “won” this year’s Brand Bowl featured emotional themes, creative messaging, and cinematic storytelling. Surprisingly, all five top-ranked ads were in the first half of the Super Bowl. Only one ad from the second half was rated above a 4.0 on average. 

Thirty-three CJC students gathered to rank over 80 advertisements shown during the game on a scale from 1-5. At the same time, students from the Atlas Lab followed online conversations on Talkwalker, a social listening platform.   

Dean Hub Brown offered his thoughts following the halftime show. “When we envisioned the Atlas Lab, these are the kinds of things that we wanted to be able to do,” he explained. “We wanted to be able to get people to really talk about what the public is doing, and what kinds of things are happening there. It’s been fun to watch.” 

When asked about his expectations for the rest of the Brand Bowl, he said: “I’m excited to see how it all turns out and I’m excited to see what the white paper is going to be looking like once this is all done.” That white paper is now available here. Excerpts from the findings are below: 

The Top 5 Ads: 

1. Lay’s – “The Last Harvest” 

• Score: 4.63 

• Lay’s advertisement outlines the bond between family of farmers, following a man and his daughter throughout their lives on a potato farm. Before the man retires, his daughter requests one last harvest together. Later, the daughter unveils a retirement party for her father with a crowd cheering. The man hands over the keys to his farm to his daughter, and the two of them embrace in the closing scene. The ad evokes emotional responses from viewers, emphasizing that the themes of family and legacy highlight Lay’s history as distinct from the rest. 

• The ad generated significant positive buzz during the Super Bowl, featuring over 15.9K results, 50,5K engagement, and 286.8M potential reach. Its sentiment was overwhelmingly positive, with 70% positive sentiment and 8.2% negative sentiment. The potential reach was 74.6M. Overall, viewers enjoyed the emotional and familial nature of the commercial, focusing on the bond between the father and his daughter. On the other hand, some viewers did not appreciate its emotional nature. 

2. Levi’s – “Backstory” 

• Score: 4.51 

• Levi’s “Backstory” ad focused on people moving and dancing in Levi’s denim and featured a number of close-up shots of backsides. The ad features a diverse cast of models in a variety of situations, highlighting the way in which Levi’s can keep up with its customers in their daily lives. The ad followed in the footsteps of Gap’s popular “Milkshake” ad from last year, showing that the brand’s target audience is not limited to one specific demographic and focusing more on the “fun” aspect of what you can do in Levi’s jeans than on actively advertising the product. 

• The spot generated 20K posts, 211.5K engagements, and a potential reach of over 99 million across social media, according to Talkwalker. The sentiment was overall positive, with a rate of 25.6%. Much of the engagement on X was due to both Rosé and Doechii’s appearances in the ad. Fans created hashtags for the K-pop idol; #RoséxLevis and #RoséatSuperBowl garnered 6.5K and 6.4K posts, respectively. Shortly after the ad aired, Levi’s announced Rosé as the brand’s new global ambassador, causing a slight spike in results. Viewers mentioned their contentment with the commercial countering American Eagle’s infamous “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” commercial. Instead, Levi’s had people literally showing off their jeans. Additionally, viewers were intrigued with the lack of people’s faces and emphasis on their lower halves. Other viewers did not enjoy the emphasis on individuals’ body parts. 

3. Pepsi – “The Choice” 

• Score: 4.48 

• Pepsi opens with a blindfolded polar bear choosing Pepsi over Coke as a beverage choice, reclaiming it as a mascot for the brand. The bear sees people drinking Pepsi over dinner and then is joined by another bear who prefers Pepsi. The bears are captured drinking Pepsi on a Super Bowl screen, referencing the Coldplay concert kiss controversy that took over pop culture last year. This ad reignited the rivalry between Coke and Pepsi, which had been on pause since it peaked over twenty years ago.  

• The spot gained significant engagement, driving more than 65.7K posts in results, 90.7K in engagement, and 1.4B potential reach. There were nearly 33.4K posts mentioning the hashtag #PepsiTasteWins and 31K mentioning #PepsiEntry. Pepsi’s official accounts are also actively engaging with consumers on social media. Audience sentiment was overwhelmingly positive, with 75.1% positive sentiment compared to just 9% negative sentiment. Viewers praised the ad’s originality, with many users claiming it “won” among this year’s Super Bowl commercials. However, there were concerns about whether the polar bears were AI-altered. 

4. Name: Liquid IV – “Take a Look” 

• Score: 4.38 

• This first ever Liquid I.V. advertisement features various singing toilets, from airplanes lavatories to graffiti-covered bathrooms, singing “Against All Odds.” At the end of the commercial they come together to remind viewers to monitor their bathroom habits and to take Liquid I.V. to stay hydrated.  

• The advertisement generated a substantial wave of negative sentiment, accounting for 72% of online reactions, and produced 15.5K posts with 36.9K engagements. Once the ad aired around 7:50 p.m., there was a large spike in mentions about Liquid IV, but results fell dramatically right after 8 p.m. Further conversations were unrelated to Liquid I.V. as the night went on, showing a short-lived but intense burst of results. 

• Viewers were taken aback seeing the singing toilets. Many said the concept was unexpected, and viewers did not feel like marketing understood the consumer. The “potty talk” theme was not taken well by the general public, although the Gen Z viewers present in the Atlas Lab seemed to have an overall positive impression of the ad. 

5. Squarespace – “Unavailable” 

• Score: 4.38 

• This commercial features Emma Stone looking for her domain across devices and becoming enraged when she finds that it is no longer available. With a pile of destroyed and discarded electronics, she continues to feel frustrated that her domain name cannot be found. 

• As one of the highest-engagement ads of the night, “Unavailable” generated 1.3K results and 2.5K engagement with a potential reach of over 1.9 billion. Squarespace captured the hearts of viewers with 37.9% positive sentiment and only 11.9% negative sentiment. Viewers appreciated the ad’s comedic tone and authentic style, compared to other ads of the evening. 

The Bottom 5 Ads: 

1. AI.com – “Get Your Handle Now” 

• Score: 1.19 

• AI.com’s “Get Your Handle Now” promoted the company’s new AI agent platform. It featured superhero-liked music and visuals that called for viewers to claim their AI handle. With their platform, users will be able to send AI agents to complete tasks on their behalf. For further context, the platform was recently bought by Kris Marsxalek, the CEO of Crypto.com. When displaying the handles, the ad references the word “elon,” as in Elon Musk. 

• The advertisement generated just over 700 publicly visible posts on social media, with 6.8K engagements and slightly more negative (29.5%) than positive (29.1%) sentiment. Total reach approached 279M. Multiple social media users responded to AI.com’s site crashing during the game due to the number of simultaneous website visitors and made jokes about the brand spending more on advertising than web servers. Others used the ad as a moment to reflect on the dot-com era technology bust. 

2. Ro – “Healthier on Ro” 

Score: 1.94 

• Ro’s “Healthier on Ro” Super Bowl ad marked the launch of its nationwide campaign, intended to highlight the medication’s benefits beyond simple weight loss. Serena Williams claims that Ro is backed by trusted medical expertise and supports reduced joint stress, steadier blood sugar, and rapid weight loss within just one year. While the ad highlighted the health benefits and positioned the weight-loss medication as having a positive impact on your health, our audience did not resonate with the message, rating the ad with a low score of 1.94. 

• Our audience’s opinion of the campaign mirrored the public’s, which generated significant negative buzz with 84.6% negative sentiment and only 3.6% positive sentiment across 1.2K results, 1.3K engagement, and 221.6M potential reach. Serena Williams’ involvement was widely criticized, with primary concerns over misleading promotions, the confusion around Williams personally using the drug, and the potential negative side effects related to taking Ro. A recurring and prominent theme in the conversation is the exploitation of Williams’ image for pharmaceutical advertising that creates unrealistic expectations regarding weight loss, focusing on convenience and rapid results rather than positive and gradual change. 

3. Genspark – “You Take Monday Off!” 

• Score: 2.03 

• Genspark’s “You Take Monday Off!” starring Matthew Broderick demonstrates how the AI platform can perform your trivial and mindless tasks for you. Broderick starts the ad by walking out of his house and asking Genspark to give him the day off, implying that the platform will complete his workday for him. He then visits people working from home and in the office, showing them how to use Genspark to finish slide decks, create graphs, and dial spreadsheets, allowing for leaving work early and even skipping workdays altogether. To demonstrate the abilities of the platform, the script of the ad was written by Genspark.  

• Genspark received a total of 212 results and 274 engagements, with a potential reach of 54.9 million. The overall sentiment towards the ad was predominately negative, with a negative net sentiment of 24.5%. While 120 of the posts originated in the United States, Japan followed closely with 74 posts. The advertisement faced criticism for implying job displacement, as the AI tool was portrayed as performing tasks traditionally done by humans. Many users described the ad as “dark” and “creepy,” suggesting it promoted widespread unemployment across multiple job sectors. Additionally, sentiment toward Broderick was largely negative, with users questioning why he would participate in an advertisement that endorses AI replacing humans in the workplace. 

4. WeatherTech – “Big Day, Bigger Savings: Tada” 

• Score: 2.03 

• “Tada” was an ad that stood out from the crowd, not for its originality, but for its unoriginal and uninspired nature. It lacked the spark and attention-grabbing elements that other high performing ads of the night excelled in and utilized a straightforward approach that was not well-received with younger and middle-aged audiences. One user even commented how it looked “like something you’d see on local news commercial breaks.” Our student panel score of 2.031 is consistent with this commentary generated by users online from across the world. 

• Talkwalker reports that “Tada” only received 230 results and 527 engagements with a potential reach of 43.2 million. Its net sentiment was consistent at 36.5% positive sentiment and 25.7% negative sentiment, making it a close turnout for overall appreciation and audience response. Most of the criticism surrounding this ad centered around the political affiliations of the company’s founder, the quality of the ad, and the unprofessionalism of the business’ employees. 

5. Base 44 – “It’s App to You” 

• Score: 2.27 

• Base 44 demonstrates the ease of using its platform in an office scene, where an employee builds a budgeting app, and an impressed coworker reveals her success to the rest of the team. The rest of the employees try the platform for themselves, creating various apps of their own.  

• Despite its Super Bowl placement, “It’s App to You” generated limited online conversation, with only 535 total mentions and an engagement score of 361. However, the campaign achieved a sizable potential reach of 80 million. Audience reactions were mixed, with users expressing both fascination with the platform’s capabilities and skepticism about AI’s role in app development for the average consumer. Net sentiment analysis revealed 39.1% positive sentiment alongside 10.8% negative sentiment. 

At the conclusion of the Brand Bowl, Atlas Lab Director Dr. Nathan Carpenter expressed his satisfaction with the event’s results.  “I am very proud of the extraordinary effort that students put into this night, from promoting and recruiting all the way to the actual research that we got to conduct,” he stated. “This is a night that hopefully stimulates people’s careers and inspires them to use analytics in communication.”  

Senior Lecturer and Associate Advertising Chair Dan Windels initiated the Brand Bowl in 2019 and also played in instrumental role planning and organizing this year’s event. This is the third consecutive year the Brand Bowl has been held in the Atlas Lab.

Category: Atlas Lab Insights, College News
Tagged: Advertising Atlas Lab Dan Windels Nathan Carpenter Social Media Analytics & Strategy
Subscribe to our News Digest