Key Findings

Research Question #1: Does a non-fan have better recall of humorous Super Bowl commercials than a fan of either team playing in the game?

Key Finding: The results indicate that nonfans have better recall likely due to the fact that they are watching the game more for entertainment than competition. Nonfans also seemed to remember specific products better.

First, the researcher wanted to learn if the participants had overall recall of Super Bowl ads. Three groups of ads were created. In each group there were ads that were shown and also ads that weren’t shown. In each of the three groups, the participants always recognized which ads were shown. However, they were also fooled by decoy ads that weren’t actually shown. For the top three ads, which were shown, 64% of participants were able to identify ads that were shown.

Second, the researcher embedded specific humorous ads into the survey to see if nonfans taking the survey recalled them better than fans. Two humorous ads were chosen. They were a Lays ad and a Hellman’s ad. A third ad was chosen to test if the participants could recognize a humorous ad from a non humorous ad. Nonfans recalled the Lays ad at a higher rate than fans. Nonfans also recalled the Hellman’s ad at a higher rate than the fans. In addition, the Budweiser ad, which wasn’t funny, was recalled at a higher rate by nonfans.

Table 1: Fans vs. NonFans Correct Recall of Commercials that Advertised in the Super Bowl

Research Question #2: How does the use of humor in Super Bowl commercials impact viewers’ recall of the products being advertised?

Key Finding: The results indicate that humor improves viewer recall of the product being advertised.

The two humorous ads were recalled by both fans and nonfans. The Lays ad was recalled at the highest level overall: 79.3% or n=73. The Hellman’s ad, which used violent-humor, was recalled at the second highest level: 68.5% or n=63. Both humorous ads were recalled at a higher percentage than the Budweiser ad, which was recalled by 60.8% (n=56) and did not include humor. Recall was highest for the humorous ad for product shown and product consumed.

Chart 4: Recall of Product Shown

Chart 5: Recall of Products Consumed

Research Question #3: Do people react differently to the violent humor in Super Bowl commercials compared to Super Bowl commercials with non-violent humor?

Key Finding: The literature review stated that if people didn’t understand the violent humor, the violence turned them off (Hatzithomas et al., 2016). The results of this research confirms that people react differently and prefer nonviolent humor over violent humor. The difference can be seen in product recall and product consumption recall. Use of violence in ads did not increase product recall. The use of violence did not change the participant's perception of the brand.

“Reaction” is defined as a combination of recall and feelings towards the brand. Participants recalled an ad as violent but didn’t think the violence made the ad more memorable. 70.1% (n=61) said no. 29% said yes.

Chart 6: Did Violence Make Commercial More Memorable

86.9% (n=73) recalled the Lays ad. Several comments were offered about violent aspects of the Lays ad but the ad wasn’t considered violent. The Lays ad did not change perception 91.3% (n=84) of all participants about the brand. For the Hellmans ad, 90.2% (n=83) indicated their feelings were not changed towards the brand because of the violence. For Budweiser ad, 92.1% (n=82) indicated their feelings were not changed, there was no violence in this commercial.