Here Are the Super Bowl Advertisers That Got the Biggest Brand Lifts

Bully Pulpit Interactive surveyed 700 people before the Super Bowl and another 700 folks after to gauge which Big Game advertisers achieved the greatest brand lift, a metric designed to identify a positive shift in consumer awareness and perception due to a paid media campaign.

All of the respondents watched the game, and 200 were in the coveted millennial demographic. Below are the key takeaways from the online panel.

• GoDaddy (+7), Budweiser (+5), Esurance (+5) and Loctite (+4) saw the greatest increases in brand favorability from their ads. So GoDaddy's decision to pull "Puppy Mill" for "Working" at the last second proved wise.
• Nationwide's creepy spot about a dead child seemed like a social media nightmare, and BPI's findings aren't much better. Unlike Esurance's good showing, Nationwide's brand favorability dropped 5 points.
• Just 13 percent of the participants recalled Wix's "It's That Easy" spot.
• BPI found that GoDaddy's ad practically had no social engagement compared with McDonald's spot. But while GoDaddy's brand favorability spiked, McDonald's was essentially flat.
• Hey creatives, in case you forgot, reinforcing the brand in a $4.5 million spot is pretty huge. For example, 10 percent of those surveyed thought they saw an ad from Audi or VW even though both brands were not Big Game advertisers, while just 20 percent recalled the Mercedes-Benz ad that actually aired. And nearly a quarter of the participants thought Royal Caribbean aired an entertaining ad. But the brand was nowhere to be seen—the Super Bowl watchers were actually remembering a Carnival Cruise spot. In contrast, 78 percent of viewers remembered seeing one of Budweiser's three ads.

And here's a further breakdown from Bully Pulpit's study.

5 Brands That Won Favorability Among General Consumers

GoDaddy (+7 percent)

Budweiser (+ 5 percent)

Esurance (+ 5 percent)

Loctite (+ 4 percent)

BMW (+ 3 percent)

3 Brands That Got Consumers Interested in Buying

Loctite (+ 2 percent)

Budweiser (+ 1 percent)

Lexus (+ 1 percent)

5 Brands That Lost the Most Millennials at Check Out

Dove (-14 percent)

Pepsi (-10 percent)

McDonald's (-9 percent)

Nissan (-7 percent)

Toyota (-5 percent)

Top 5 Brands That Won Super Bowl Ad Recall

Budweiser (78 percent)

GoDaddy (60 percent)

NFL (59 percent)

Nationwide (59 percent)

McDonald's (54 percent)

Lastly, Bully Pulpit—best known for its work for the Democratic Party—appears to be delving into consumer brands more than it once did.

"As we bring insights from our political work over to the commercial space, we want to keep asking the tough questions, such as: Did this ad really work?" explained Andrew Bleeker, president. "Our goal is to help surface the right metrics to allow brands to optimize for persuasion as well as activity. The Super Bowl was a natural moment to try and test that."