Ads Held Viewers the Super Bowl Bored
THIS YEAR'S SUPER BOWL was a blowout, but at least one group benefited from the boring football match-up: advertisers.</br></br>Viewers last Sunday paid even more attention to the ads that aired during the big game than they had expected to, according to a Wall Street Journal/Harris Interactive poll. Harris Interactive surveyed 2,948 people online before the Super Bowl about whether they planned to watch the big game and the ads, and about their overall impression of Super Bowl advertising. The pollsters went back to those people after Sunday's game to find out if they watched the hyped ad campaigns as closely as expected. The pollsters conducted a total of 938 postgame interviews.</br></br>As the Baltimore Ravens routed the New York Giants, just 52% of the respondents said they stayed tuned for every second of the game, compared with 71% who said they planned to watch the whole thing when asked before the game. Just as many respondents -- 52% -- said they watched every second of advertising during the game, even though only 39% had planned to stay tuned in through all the commercial breaks before the game.</br></br>Still, fans overall were slightly disappointed by this year's advertising face-off. When this year's Super Bowl ads and those of previous Super Bowls were rated, the ads of Super Bowls past came out on top. On a scale of one to seven, with one being "very negative" and seven being "very positive," this year's ads rated an average score of 4.7. That compares with an average score of 5.2 when respondents were asked their opinion of ads from previous Super Bowls, in general.</br></br>As further proof, 22% of respondents asked after the Super Bowl said they found the ads "annoying," compared with the 16% of pregame respondents who described the ads that way. And only 39% of postgame respondents said the ads made the game more enjoyable, compared with 51% of pregame respondents who said that.