Mercedes-Benz appears to have capitalized on its Super Bowl involvement.

Chrysler and Toyota have garnered the consensus nod for creating the most enjoyable Super Bowl XLVII spots for viewers to watch. But when it comes to drawing interest in vehicles, Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai already are emerging on top. And that means they're all winners of a mega-event that car marketers increasingly dominate.

Most reviewers appreciated the all-American sentiments and the magnanimity expressed by Chrysler's pair of two-minute anthem ads, "Whole Again" and "Farmer," the latter of which received attention for being based on a 2011 ad about the farming life. And Toyota's "Wish Granted" spot, starring Kaley Cuoco, scored as the most effective humor displayed by any of the eight car brands that advertised during the Big Game.

But Edmunds.com established on Monday that the Mercedes-Benz CLA Class model advertised during the game garnered the biggest jump in web traffic afterward, as measured by visits to the site's own home pages — a whopping 23,067 more product pageviews compared with the previous four Sundays on average. And on AutoTrader.com, Hyundai generated the top statistic of any brand last night: a 1,004 percent increase in searches on the site, according to Adweek.Continue reading...

"Brotherhood," Budweiser's 2013 Super Bowl ad, was among those which stood out among rather routine fare.

Super Bowl ads (the complete list) this year provided few gems, according to an emerging consensus of industry professionals.

Many were deemed lame or even confusing, and generally considered ineffective and off-brand. Several brands seemed to suffer rather than benefit from the frenzy of sneak peeks and full-commercial reveals in this year's rush for pre-Game exposure and social buzz.

Just four days before the game, only a few Super Bowl advertisers have kept the creative content of their commercials entirely under wraps — and even fewer are yet to come forward reveal their participation.

One of the last hand-raisers came clean today: Speed Stick, which will air its first-ever Super Bowl commercial. The spot will represent the latest execution of "Handle It," a campaign that "celebrates moments when guys are sweating on the inside but step up and Handle It on the outside," according to a release.

In the spot, "Laundry," which was crowdsourced by the Tongal video community, a man demonstrates that he knows how to "handle it" in a laundromat when a woman finds him accidentally handling a pair of her panties. With the ad, Speed Stick and parent Colgate joinma men's personal-care battle-within-a-battle during the Super Bowl, competing against Unilever's Axe (which is sending contest winners to space).

Calvin Klein is also making its Super Bowl debut, and it's also about men and underwear:Continue reading...

Above, Chrysler's well-received 2011 Super Bowl ad, "Imported From Detroit," featuring Eminem.

Chrysler's  earnings report today made it apparent that its sales and financial recovery remains well on track, though there are new snags in its product plans due to fiat's drag on the combined company.

Chrysler posted prelimary net income of $1.7 billion for 2012, up nearly tenfold from the year-earlier $183 million and exceeding the guidance that it issued previously. The gains came largely on the strength of an 18 percent gain in worldwide vehicle sales, most of it realized in a U.S. market that has re-embraced Chrysler brands and products. Chrysler U.S. sales have increased by more than 50 percent since 2010, and its U.S. market share climbed two percentage points, to 11.4 percent, last year. 

"While we are pleased to have achieved strong financial results in 2012, the enterprise we are crafting is not complete," CEO Sergio Marchionne said Wednesday in a release.Continue reading...

Many of our questions about Super Bowl advertising storylines are already answered days ahead of the Big Game itself.

Few of the ads will still have us hanging on the edges of our couches, waiting to see how the commercial ends and wondering how all the strands of the plot or the joke or the jolt will be resolved.

Is that a good thing? Brand after brand is betting it is. Here are some recent developments:Continue reading...

More and more, the Super Bowl is becoming the Auto Bowl.

Up from just a handful of car brands a few years ago, Super Bowl XLVII on Feb. 3 will feature no fewer than eight auto brands advertised by six different companies: Audi, Chrysler, Lincoln, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota and Volkswagen.

"A lot of us are there," Steve Shannon, CMO for Hyundai Motor America, told The New York Times, because "it sells cars." Specifically, the game, its walk-up and aftermath have become an unparalleled platform for launching or previewing new products, refining brand positioning, or both.

Audi of America plans to crowdsource the end of its Super Bowl spot by offering three different endings to a prom-night story on its YouTube channel. Lent an Audi S6 by his father, a boy exudes self-confidence as he drives to the dance, struts in, spies the prom queen and gives her a dramatic kiss. Then the prom king approaches him and... the rest will be determined by viewers who weigh in.Continue reading...

Coca-Cola is taking the crowdsourcing bent of Super Bowl advertising to the next level with its just-announced "Mirage" campaign for Super Bowl XLVII on Feb. 3, with a story arc that will rely on social media input from viewers to determine the ending.

The brand's effort also promises a great in-game marketing battle with Pepsi, which is sponsoring the halftime show. And just for good measure, Coke also will be repeating its anti-obesity ad on Super Bowl Sunday.

Coke previewed creative and discussed its strategy for the Super Bowl on Tuesday with journalists and bloggers, as marketing executives vowed that the brand's socially-focused effort would surpass the success of last year's "Polar Bears" campaign. In it, viewers collectively dictated the animated bears' responses to game action and even to other brands' commercials.Continue reading...

The Big Game is still a good bit away. But now that pre- and post-game social-media campaigns have become at least as important as TV ads during the Super Bowl itself, the walkup period has become a crucial one for brands to shape and optimize their game-day messaging.

Take Taco Bell. The chain has unveiled a teaser video for its 60-second ad during the third quarter of the Feb. 3 game. The teaser and spot, titled "Viva Young," shows an 87-year-old man having the time of his life tearing up a football field on his souped-up motorized scooter. "Taco Bell is about memories and experiences," Taco Bell's CMO said in a release. 

Meanwhile, the pressure is on Volkswagen to come up with a memorable Super Bowl ad for the third year in a row. Its 2011 ad for the Passat sedan, nicknamed "Little Darth Vader," was such a huge hit that it was awarded as one of the most memorable auto-related TV ads of the past 25 years at this year's Detroit Auto Show. And last year's VW ad, about the new Beetle, also was enthusiastically received.Continue reading...