General Mills brought back Gracie and her interracial parents from last year’s Super Bowl commercial during the first unscheduled timeout of Sunday’s game.
According to Bonnie Drewniany’s Super Bowl of Advertising class, General Mills was doing something right when they created the commercial. The students voted it this year’s best ad, making its creators the winner of the annual Cocky Award.
In the ad, a father uses Cheerios to explain to his daughter that she would soon have a baby brother, and the girl responds by suggesting they also add a puppy to the family.
The students in Drewniany’s class were focused on the commercials during the big game, while most people focused on the game, spent time with friends or gorged on food.
The group of more than 100 students gathered in the Carolina Coliseum to watch the game together and rate each commercial based on its likability, persuasiveness, brand identity and whether or not they’d seen it before.
“What it comes down to for me is, ‘Am I intrigued by it the whole time?’” fourth-year business student Louis Howell said. “That’s the one I’m going to give the best score to. If there’s more than one that does that for me, I’ll give it to the one that sets above the rest.”
The class stopped after every commercial to rate it, and during the game, they skipped past the lag time in between plays. Even so, the students typically finish the game an hour and a half behind the rest of the world.
While preparing for the event, students practiced rating ads in class and analyzed what made previous winners of the Cocky Award so successful. They also researched the behind-the-scenes aspects of the commercials.
“I’ve gained an appreciation of how much goes into making that million-dollar ad,” fourth-year advertising student Shannon White said.
Drewniany said she hopes that investigating the process behind the commercials has taught her students “never to look at an ad the same way.”