BT's "most memorable" Olympics ad
BT’s ad featuring Spanish girls visiting a neighbour’s flat to use their broadband whilst visiting London for the Olympics was the most memorable Olympic-themed TV advert in the UK from an official sponsor.
The resullts come from Nielsen, the official Market Research Services Provider to The London 2012 Olympic Games. Dubbed “Hola”, the Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO ad was 36% more likely to be remembered than the average Olympic-themed TV ad from an Olympic sponsor. BT’s ad was narrowly ahead of McDonald’s free Olympic glass giveaway (which was 32% more memorable than the average Olympic sponsors’ ad). Third was Visa’s ad, featuring Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt racing a man across London to the Olympic stadium. Part of its “Flow Faster” campaign, the ad was 30% more memorable than the average Olympic sponsors’ ad.
Nielsen’s recall (or memorability) score is based on the percentage of TV viewers who can recall within 24 hours the storyline of an ad they were exposed to during the normal course of their TV viewing. Every new ad aired on ITV1, Channel 4, Five and Sky 1 in the evenings since 1 January 2012 up to the end of the Olympics was covered. Other brands to score strongly included Fairy and Cadbury.
Nielsen VP of advertising effectiveness for Europe, Darren Moore said: “Many of the sponsors gave their ads an Olympic theme by making Olympic athletes or Olympic venues central to their creative. The most memorable ad, from BT, instead, integrates an Olympic-themed storyline into its already-recognisable series of ads featuring flat-sharing friends.”
Aside from most memorable ads, Nielsen also measured “most-liked ads”. Number one was Samsung’s Everyone’s Olympic Games featuring David Beckham, which was 35% more liked than the average Olympic-themed ad from an official sponsor during 2012. This was followed by Procter & Gamble whose “Kids” ad – featuring Olympic athletes portrayed as children – was 30% more liked than the average ad. In a tie for third place were BT’s “Hola” and watchmaker Omega’s “Start me up” – both 25% more liked than average.
Moore concludes: “Capturing the excitement of the Olympics was clearly the best way to create ads that people really liked. Samsung, P&G and Omega managed to fuse this excitement with emotive imagery to really connect with TV viewers. In addition, using popular icons is a tried and trusted method of achieving advertising effectiveness, and Samsung’s use of David Beckham has helped it to the likeability gold medal.”
