GRAND HAVEN, Mich. — For 20 years, local ad-expert Bill McKendry has been throwing a different type of Super Bowl watch party.
“This is the one Super Bowl party where everybody talks during the game. And we're absolutely quiet during the ads so that we can all watch it,” ,” said McKendry, Chief Creative Officer at HAVEN Creative Hub.
“The Super Bowl is really the Oscars of advertising. It's really the really the best creative people in the world and the biggest budgets that advertising gets, and it all appears tonight,” he added.
At Super Ad Haven, McKendry and a group of people grade the commercials in real time.
“The goal is by the end of the night that we predict what will be the top three ads in tomorrow's USA Today,” he said.
While the pandemic may have limited the in-person party attendance, it’s expanded the event across the nation. “We're bringing in people from all over the country and analysts from all over the country, Dallas, Arizona, Chicago, east coast, west coast, and we're bringing in people live, and they're going to be watching the ads with us live and we're going to be analyzing the ads together,” says McKendry
So which companies scored a touchdown? Who fell short? These experts have a keen way of deciding.
“The ad experts have different reasons why they like ads, like do you get your message across? You've taken a position and you made that that very clear in your ad, right? Where the average person at home is just like, is this a good ad? Or is it not? Do I like it or not? So to kind of match up the two is really critical,” he explained.
So who took home the top 3 this year? Those honors go to the Flaming Hot Doritos Ad, GM's Doctor Evil Spot, and Lay's Golden Memories.
