Pepsi Scores, Subaru Slips On Super Bowl By Alison Fahey and David Kile

NEW YORK - BBDO/N.Y., which launched new campaigns during the Super Bowl for several of its biggest accounts, scored a touchdown for longtime

A post-game national poll conducted by USA Today ranked Pepsi’s commercials for the flagship brand and its colorless counterpart, Crystal Pepsi, as the most likable, effective and memorable ads of the 43 Super Bowl and two halftime spots.
‘Overall, Pepsi won the biggest Super Bowl ever,’ said Bill Katz, BBDO’s executive vp/senior account director. ‘We overwhelmingly beat any other advertiser in terms of recall, likability and effectiveness. We’re ecstatic.’
That means that Pepsi also beat out other BBDO Super Bowl advertisers like Federal Express, Frito-Lay and Gillette, which had a particularly weak showing in an earlier USA Today survey of 68 Baltimore residents where Gillette spots, which introduced its Gillette Series male toiletries line, failed to place among the top 15 ads.
In the same survey, Pepsi’s highest rating put it in 7th place, while McDonald’s Micheal Jordan/Larry Bird spot, by Leo Burnett/Chicago, topped the chart.
Viewers in the national poll regarded ads for Subaru of America as more forgettable than disliked. Only 2% named the car ads as least likeable. In an earlier poll that just tapped Baltimore residents, Subaru’s highest rated ad for its new Impreza came in 37th out of the 43 spots and three of the six spots ranked below even the ad for Coopers & Lybrand, an accounting firm. Being beaten out by accountants in the Super Bowl won’t likely enhance W&K’s stature on what is widely seen as a faltering account.
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