Super Bowl hype is over, but a week later is the perfect time to see how the ads that aired through the game impacted consumer interest.

We all have our personal favourite ads from the big game (loved the Google Pixel 8 spot), but I’m always interested in performance; the measurable impact these hugely expensive and high-profile ads produced. The best publicly available data to evaluate this with is Google search data.

The thinking here is simple – when people are interested in something (in this case triggered by seeing an ad during the Super Bowl), they’re more likely to Google it.

Postgame Brand Interest

This chart shows week-over-week Google search growth – an analogue for consumer interest – for the brands that advertised during the Super Bowl:

A few notes and observations:

Homes.com saw a significant lift in search interest pre- versus postgame. Not to take away from this achievement, it’s worth noting that the brand’s overall search volume isn’t huge – true for all brands, it tends to be easier to drive significant growth rates when you’re not already a juggernaut brand. At least partially, this likely also explains the dramatic growth for Starry.

Predictably, food delivery brands DoorDash and Uber Eats, and gambling brands BetMGM and FanDuel, experienced significant spikes in search interest (and I assume engagement; good for them!) the day prior to game day, which negatively impacted their week-over-week growth.

You might have noticed several entertainment ads missing from the data – upcoming movies and shows like Kung Fu Panda 4, Bob Marley: One Love, Monkey Man, Twisters, and others. The nature of entertainment launches means there is limited search history to provide an accurate read on pregame interest, which can dramatically skew growth rate calculations.

Postgame Team and Performer Interest

Beyond advertisers, there are a lot of other brands involved in the Super Bowl – participating teams, and the many celebrity performers through the game.

I thought it would be interesting to look at how participation in the Super Bowl impacted interest in these brands as well.

A few notes and observations:

Surprise, surprise… interest in the Kansas City Chiefs grew postgame while interest in the San Francisco 49ers fell off.

Interestingly, search volumes for every guest halftime performer increased more significantly than Usher – the headlining halftime performer. I suspect this was driven by guest performers being more of a surprise versus Usher, who has been known to be the halftime performer for months now.

Many other celebrities performed as part of the Super Bowl game and celebrations, including Kaskade who was the first in-game DJ to perform at the Super Bowl. Growth in Kaskade interest spiked in the week or so pregame when it was announced that he would replace Tiësto as the in-game DJ, which negatively impacted postgame growth.

Finally, Taylor Swift; Taylor had no official role at the game, but her presence was definitely felt. Interest in Taylor Swift is so immense that I think the only way for it to grow is for the population of the world to increase, so no surprise that interest in Taylor pre- and postgame remained relatively flat.