FAQ: Super Bowl LVI Ad Performance

Super Bowl LVI ad headlines revolved around the increased auto focus on electric vehicles, the media-dubbed “Crypto Bowl” and a massive 40% increase in rookie advertisers, thanks in large part to legacy advertisers’ decisions to focus on other Big Game-related marketing efforts.

EDO data has supported many of these stories — from CNBC, to Yahoo! Finance, Reuters, Bloomberg, and Statista. We’ve learned a thing or two after analyzing over 100 ads from this year’s game: here are the top three points from our Super Bowl LVI ad analysis from advertising’s most costly — and most critical — day of the year.

Is there a magic formula for Super Bowl commercials?

EDO has measured 200 million ad airings on TV since 2015, including seven Super Bowls. While there’s no single magic formula for creating a great ad, the most engaging commercials typically have three ingredients:

1. An intriguing new product or service. Per NBC, there were 30 rookie advertisers debuting Big Game spots this year, looking to gain brand awareness in the Big Game. 
2. Exciting and fun visuals and music. Many brands treat the production of their Super Bowl ads like a 30 or 60-second movie by hiring A-list directors and choreographers.
3. Authentic celebrity connection to brand’s message. Several brands, such as Caeser’s Sportsbook, Nissan, and Uber Eats, used multiple celebrities to drive home brand messaging.

Who were the top-performing Super Bowl LVI advertisers?

Polestar had the best performing ad of the night, which was 23x more effective at driving brand search than the median Super Bowl LVI ad. The spot, titled “No Compromises,” features the sleek Polestar brand with a slew of short statements taking aim at their celebrity competitors: Tesla, Volkswagen, and Audi.

Coming in a close second in our rankings this year is Cue Health. Cue had the only Covid-19 related spot of the game, and was also the only pharma company to air a Super Bowl ad in 2022. The company’s airing features Gal Gadot lending her voice to the at-home digital diagnostic test, and performed 22.5x better than the median Super Bowl ad this year.

The Coinbase bouncing QR code commercial was the most engaging crypto ad in this year’s game, earning 8x more engagement than the median Super Bowl LVI ad. The spot, which confused some viewers and piqued the interest of others, generated enough buzz, and website visitors, to completely crash the Coinbase site.

Find our full Super Bowl LVI ad ranker here.

Which celebrities delivered the biggest bang for the Super Bowl buck?

Dolly Parton’s T-Mobile spot, “PSA,” drove the most searches of any celebrity in an ad this year, generating 25.4x more engagement than the median performing in-game Super Bowl celebrity ad appearance. 

Celebrity couple Scarlett Johansson and her SNL veteran husband Colin Jost for Amazon Alexa also outperformed. Johansson drove 25.2x more engagement than the average celebrity ad, while Jost drove 4x more engagement.

There were 44 individual ad airings that featured at least one celebrity this year, and nearly half (20) that featured more than two. One brand that saw this strategy succeed was Toyota with its spot featuring multiple famous Joneses, including Tommy Lee, Leslie, Rashida, and a bonus Nick Jonas. 

For more on the celebrities that drove the most online search in this year’s game, see our full celebrity ad ranker.

This year, 99.2 million viewers tuned into Super Bowl LVI. See EDO’s minute-by-minute distribution of Super Bowl LVI viewership across the US, Los Angeles, and Cincinnati.