Doritos Registers Highest Brand Improvement Score in Comscore’s 2009 Super Bowl Survey

Internet Plays Important Role in Super Bowl Festivities with 41 percent Going Online during Game

RESTON, VA, February 5, 2009 – Comscore (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released the results of its annual Super Bowl surveys, one conducted prior to the game (1,003 U.S. Internet users surveyed on Jan. 26-27, 2009) and one conducted after the game (1,042 U.S. Internet users surveyed on Feb. 3-4, 2009), to understand people’s expected and actual behaviors on game day, as well as their attitudes with respect to the Super Bowl advertisements.

Game Day Internet Usage

The Internet continues to play an important role in the Super Bowl Sunday festivities, with two-thirds of those who watched the Super Bowl indicating that they went online at some point during game day. Approximately 41 percent of respondents said they used the Internet during the actual game, while 33 percent logged online during halftime. Some of their Internet-related activities on game day included:

• 12 percent of respondents said they used the Internet to view this year’s Super Bowl ads online; 8 percent said they viewed previous years’ ads.
• 15 percent of respondents said they visited an advertiser’s Web site after viewing their Super Bowl ad; of those, the top advertiser site destinations were GoDaddy.com (29 percent), Dennys.com (23 percent) and Coca-Cola.com (22 percent).
• 9 percent of respondents said they voted for the Super Bowl MVP via text messaging or online.

Beverage Companies Dominate Favorite Advertisers

One-quarter of respondents in the pre-Super Bowl survey indicated that watching the ads is their favorite part of the day’s festivities. When asked which three companies’ ads they were most looking forward to, respondents demonstrated a strong preference for beverage brands. Specifically, the most anticipated brand’s ads were Bud/Bud Light with 76 percent of respondents, followed by Coca Cola (48 percent) and Pepsi Co. (43 percent). Controversial perennial Super Bowl advertiser GoDaddy.com ranked fifth with 15 percent of respondents.

Interestingly, their expectations mirrored reality. In the post-Super Bowl survey, when asked which ads they would like to see again, respondents selected the same top five advertisers from the “most anticipated” list, though in a slightly different order of preference. Doritos proved even more popular than its high expectations, ranking second with 34 percent of respondents indicating they would like to see the brand’s ads again.

Doritos Scores Highest Net Improvement in Brand Survey

Comscore also asked respondents in the post-Super Bowl survey whether the various Super Bowl ads improved, damaged, or left unchanged their perception of the advertised brands. Doritos scored the highest net improvement score of 42 percentage points, followed by Bud/Bud Light (40 percentage points) and Denny’s (39 percentage points), whose offer of a free Grand Slam breakfast to everyone in America on Tuesday, February 3, apparently resonated with the public.

GoDaddy.com had the highest brand damage score (15 percent), which resulted in the lowest net brand improvement score (13 percentage points). In fact, GoDaddy.com was the only advertiser with a brand damage score higher than 6 percent. Nevertheless, GoDaddy.com registered the third highest ad recall (53 percent of respondents), trailing only Bud/Bud Light (72 percent) and Doritos (59 percent).

Americans Accurately Predict Steelers Victory, Miss on MVP

In the pre-game survey, respondents were asked to predict the outcome of the game, as well as who they thought would be the recipient of the MVP trophy. Nearly two-third of respondents (66 percent) accurately predicted that the Steelers would emerge victorious in the Super Bowl, compared to 23 percent who predicted the Cardinals to win. However, only 2 percent of respondents accurately predicted that Steelers wide receiver Santonio Holmes would be named the game’s most valuable player. They had instead favored Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger with 29 percent of the vote, with Cardinals’ quarterback Kurt Warner the second highest vote-getter at 19 percent.

About Comscore

Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

Press
Bill Daddi
Daddi Brand Communications
646-370-1341
press@comscore.com