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Feb 8, 2019

Kellogg MBA Students Choose Best 2019 Super Bowl Ads

Super Bowl Commercials

Aside from Tom Brady, Aaron Donald, and a shirtless Adam Levine, there’s no doubt that the Super Bowl commercials were the star of the night last Sunday.

The game, certainly, wasn’t the most thrilling. So the question is, what was the best ad of the 2019 Super Bowl? To get to the bottom of the question, a panel of Northwestern Kellogg MBA students got together to discuss each commercial. In the end, they looked for the ads that were the most and least effective at driving business and building their brands.

Here’s what they found.

How Super Bowl Commercials Evaluation Works

First, before we dive into the best and worst ads, it’s important to know how the Kellogg MBAs made their evaluation. Working alongside two of the school’s most widely respected marketing professors—Time Calkins and Derek Rucker—the MBA panel applied the strategic ADPLAN framework.

A—Attention: Did the commercial engage the audience?
D—Distinction: Was the execution unique in delivery?
P—Positioning: Did the commercial represent the appropriate category and feature a strong benefit?
L—Linkage: Will the benefit and brand be remembered?
A—Amplification: Were viewers’ thoughts favorable?
N—Net Equity: Was the commercial consistent with the brand’s reputation and history?
From here, the MBA students came up with the final 2019 rankings.

Microsoft Super Bowl Commercial Wins

For the most effective ad, Microsoft took home the top prize. Their commercial spot was not only charming, but it stood out for its emotional tone and lack of clutter. The ad demonstrated Microsoft’s new adaptive controller and how it helps disabled kids play video games and form friendships. A clear benefit was apparent, showing how Microsoft technology makes the world a better place.

Amazon, Expensify, and Other Standouts

Other stand out advertisers for the Super Bowl included AmazonExpensifyWashington PostPepsiBumble, and Google.

For each of these top spots, there was something different that made them stand out. Pepsi made an ad built upon a very common question, “Is Pepsi OK?” while the Washington Post avoided politics and instead focused on celebrating the role of journalists. On the other hand, Amazon featured product failures and celebrities while Expensify demonstrated how easy it is to keep track of your receipts with their product.

Bizarre Andy Warhol Burger King Commercial Flops

As for the least effective Super Bowl commercial, that honor went to Burger King. Their strange ad featured 1982 footage of Andy Warhol eating a Whopper, but it just came across as dull and uninteresting. Other advertising failures included the confusing Avocados From Mexico ad, Sprint’s flying horse disaster, the Turkish Airlines dark and scary spot, Mint Mobile’s unappealing chunky milk, and Simplesafe’s unbalanced ad. As for why each of these commercials failed, it always came back to a confusing message that didn’t deliver a clear benefit.

Overall, it was a good year for Super Bowl commercials even if the game was subpar. Do you agree with Kellogg’s picks?


This article has been republished and edited from its original source, Clear Admit.

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Nov 21, 2018

NFL Players Association Helps Players Pursuing Their MBA

nfl mba

When you spend seasons on end playing game after game, what sounds exciting to an NFL player? Something different that allows you to take your education one step further. At least that’s the case for Kicker Stephen Gostkowski and a couple of his teammates on the New England Patriots who are close to earning their MBAs.

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Feb 9, 2018

Amazon, Philly Win Super Bowl According to Northwestern Kellogg

philly win super bowl

Philadelphia football fans took to the streets, toppling cars, scaling street lamps, and setting at least one fire to celebrate their beloved Eagles’ first-ever Super Bowl win, 41 to 33 against the New England Patriots. But according to MBA students at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, e-commerce giant Amazon was the victor in terms of best ads of the night.

On Sunday, as the game got underway in minus-2-degree Fahrenheit Minneapolis, approximately 50 Kellogg students teamed up with marketing professors Tim Calkins and Derek Rucker to determine the night’s winners and losers in the battle of the brands. Advertisers spend more than $2 billion each year and roll out highly anticipated Super Bowl commercial spots in an effort to imprint their brands in the minds of millions of spectators—some wowing and others bombing in the process.

Kellogg students watch commercials during the Super Bowl at the Allen Center Atrium in Evanston, Illinois, February 4, 2018. Photo by Jim Young for Kellogg

Armchair spectators around the world pick their own winners and losers among the ads, but for the 14th year running, Kellogg students applied a unique framework for evaluating an ad’s brand-building potential as part of last night’s 2018 Kellogg School Super Bowl Ad Review. Using the ADPLAN framework to evaluate each ad according to six critical criteria—Attention, Distinction, Positioning, Linkage, Amplifications and Net Equity—the Kellogg students determined the winner of the night to be Amazon with its “Alexa Loses Her Voice” commercial spot. Also scoring highly were Mountain Dew, Doritos, Tide, Avocados from Mexico, and Wendy’s.

Joining the Pats in defeat, according to the Kellogg review, were Squarespace and T-Mobile, which each received “F” grades for least effective advertising during the game.

“Amazon used a cast of celebrities that focused us on the brand, reinforced the equity in Alexa, and ultimately was fun to discuss and share with those around you,” Professor Rucker said in a statement. The Amazon ad included appearances by Cardi B, Rebel Wilson, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. “However, Squarespace and T-Mobile both missed the mark with questionable positioning and unclear calls to action,” continued Rucker.

Kellogg students analyzing Super Bowl ads in real time. Photo by Jim Young for Kellogg

Professor Calkins called attention to two trends that emerged across the big game’s ads—a competitive angle and philanthropy. “As competitive as the game was, the category wars were equally competitive,” Calkins said in a statement. “For example, there was hard hitting competition in the wireless wars with some brands calling one another out,” he noted. In addition to poorly performing T-Mobile, wireless advertisers included Sprint and Verizon, which the Kellogg student review team each awarded “B” grades.

“Many brands tried to appeal to viewers through philanthropic causes, including Toyota, Ram, and Hyundai,” Calkins added. Ram, for its part, sought to sell its trucks using images of people helping others with a sermon given by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as the voice over. The ad concluded with the phrase “Built to Serve” flashed on the screen alongside a Ram logo. Unfortunately for Ram, the social media backlash was fast and furious.

“A Martin Luther King Jr speech to sell @Dodge Ram trucks? Totally offensive #mlk,” wrote one user on Twitter.

Several other tweets expressed similar sentiments:

The Kellogg student team gave the Ram commercial a “C” grade overall, but Calkins had more to say in an interview with the New York Times. “It’s the wrong mistake to make given everything that’s going on in the U.S. right now,” he told the Times. “There’s so much emotion right now around race in this country that this was a high-risk move, and clearly it’s not going over very well,” he continued.

“I think it was well intentioned, but they’re going to have a lot of explaining to do,” Calkins continued. “They did not release this ahead of time, so they went for the surprise. They got that, but at the same time they now have a big problem with feedback and people being upset.”

Though many on Twitter directed their ire toward Dodge—the Detroit-based car manufacturer founded by two brothers of that name in the early 1900s—the Ram Truck brand was officially separated from the Dodge car brand in 2009 as part of an acquisition by Italian automaker Fiat S.p.A. Its successor, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, is the current owner of the Ram Tuck brand.

Perhaps some of the confusion around brand will be a boon to Ram’s owner as it attempts to recover from its Super Bowl fumble. As for whether ad champion Amazon will look favorably on football champion Philadelphia as a spot for its future HQ2—another topic of speculation on social media last night—only time will tell. What we do know is that the students at Kellogg will carry lessons learned from advertising’s biggest night along with them into their future careers in marketing.

For the full 2018 Kellogg School Super Bowl Ad Review results, click here.

To learn more about the Kellogg School Super Bowl Advertising Review, click here.

This article was republished with permissions from our sister site, Clear Admit.

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Feb 5, 2018

Philly Schools React to Eagles Super Bowl Triumph

eagles reaction

Philadelphia Eagles fans around the world rejoiced last night, taking home the first Super Bowl victory in the history of the organization. A handful of Philly business schools also joined in the jubilation after the upset of the New England Patriots, sharing a round of joyous reactions.


Drexel University and the LeBow College of Business was among the first to share their reaction to the Eagles victory, posting a celebratory video from University president John Fry.

Temple University and the Fox School of Business were a bit less formal in their congratulatory Eagles reaction, posting the following.

The West Chester Philadelphia campus took things a bit further, lighting up its buildings in heavy Eagles green.

Villanova Business went a bit of a different direction, with students Michelle Maduras (’19 VSB) and Kriya Amin (’19 VSB) review the night’s ads in a live feed. Some of their favorites from Sunday night came from Mountain Dew, Doritos, and, of course, the New York Giants’ Dirty Dancing inspired tribute.

Out of Chicago, experts from the Northwestern Kellogg School of Management revealed their thoughts on the Super Bowl 52 ads, which you can check out over at Clear Admit.

Posted in: Boston, Featured Home, Featured Region, News, Philadelphia | Comments Off on Philly Schools React to Eagles Super Bowl Triumph

Apr 5, 2017

Gupta MBA Earns Spot At The Super Bowl

Super Bowl

Thanks to her strong business education from the University of Dallas – Satish and Yasmin Gupta College of Business , MBA graduate Kelly Jones was given the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to attend this years’ biggest sporting event: the Super Bowl.

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