S. FL Students Weigh-In On Effectiveness Of The Big Game Ads
MIAMI (CBSMiami) - Advertisements are big business during the biggest football game of the year.
Sunday night's Super Bowl telecast drew 111.5 million viewers, the most watched television event in U.S. history.
A 30-second spot during the Super Bowl cost sponsors an estimated $4 million.
Most of this year's ads went for the heart-strings of viewers, including one that proved to be what many people are calling the biggest hit of the night Budweiser's Puppy Love commercial.
The ad - featuring an unlikely friendship between a puppy and Clydesdale horse - generated more than 33 million hits on YouTube in the days leading up to the game.
Coca-Cola showed the diversity of the United States.
"America The Beautiful" could be heard in different languages in a minute-long spot.
But just how effective were these multi-million dollar commercials?
Monday, business students from Johnson and Wales University brought their opinions from the living room to the classroom.
"I believe they get better every year, more competitive every year," said student Brandon Aran.
Not everyone loved them.
"I thought they were going to be better than what they were so I was pretty disappointed,"
added student Chelsea Walker.
Other sponsors tried to tie their products with a cause.
Rockers U2 and Bank of America teaming up to help an AIDS relief charity.
While Chevrolet's ad promoted the American Cancer Society.
But getting a laugh was still important to other sponsors.
Tim Tebow starred in two commercials for T-Mobile, poking fun at his time spent looking for a new NFL job.
"I thought it was really funny how they used him to depict, they're promoting no limits to contracts, like T-Mobile no limits you don't have to have a contract and Tim Tebow not being able to find a contract, I found it to be very, very funny," said student Jo El.
A "Seinfeld" reunion just before halftime promoted Jerry Seinfeld's new show.
Radio Shack did a throw-back to another decade with its spot in the first half of the game. "The 80s called they want their store back," the ad stated.
"It's very expensive to get a commercial out there and at $4 million a pop, that's a lot of money going out there. But when you look at the big picture of it, it really only cost .037 cents per person if 108 million people actually watched it," explained Professor John Cejka with Johnson & Wales University.
The spot by Cheerios brought back an interracial family to make a big announcement - that they're having a baby.
The family was featured in a commercial last year that got a lot of people talking.
It turns out the new ad has a South Florida connection, since the creative director and the copy writer are both University of Miami grads.