On the Spot

Heartwarming. Hilarious. Sort of odd. Total fail. Meh.

Everyone has different reactions to Super Bowl commercials. For most people, those opinions don’t go much further than the couch on Sunday or the water cooler on Monday.

But students in Sawyer Business School Professor Skip Perham’s Business of Sports in the Media class got to share their views about the ads on one of the biggest platforms in the country: USA TODAY. Each year the outlet’s venerable Ad Meter poll invites students from select colleges and universities across the country to weigh in on all the spots and then do an in-class post mortem with USA TODAY Senior Content Strategist Rick Suter.

First on the students’ list? Michelob Ultra’s “Ultra Hustle” spot that featured Catherine O'Hara and Willem Dafoe. As one student commented, “Enjoyed the intensity, looseness, and use of celebrities that made it seem like Ultra is a one-of-a-kind beer.”

The leader of the losers was “Foam Diva,” an ad for Coffee-Mate that showed a man’s tongue having a psychedelic moment. One student noted the creative “was quite weird and there could have been a ton of different approaches the company could have taken for this ad.”

Suffolk University students “provided a remarkable mix of critique and insight into the pop-culture staples that now fetch $8 million for 30 seconds,” Suter wrote in his USA TODAY Ad Meter Marketing Spotlight headlined: "Suffolk University’s top 5 and bottom 5."

Read the full USA TODAY article.