USC has a class on Super Bowl commercials and they want you to vote for your favorite

Sick of watching the New England Patriots win? Still mad at the Los Angeles Rams for leaving St. Louis? Did you somehow get roped into a Super Bowl party but have no intention of watching the game?

If so, there’s always the ads.

Ever since the famous 1984 Apple commercial, the Super Bowl has been that one time of year where companies spend millions in pursuit of winning audiences over with big-budget humor or heartfelt vignettes.

But sometimes those commercials flop, and we feel uncomfortable like Rams fans watching replays of the blown pass interference call from the NFC Championship game. (But really, ethnic stereotypes? Suicidal robots? How do people think these are good ideas for commercials?)

Fortunately for passionate ad critics, the University of South Carolina’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications will be holding the Cocky’s Super Ad Poll, where participants can armchair quarterback this year’s Super Bowl commercials in an online poll.

The poll, an extension of a USC class dedicated to Super Bowl commercials, will ask participants to evaluate which commercials were the most likable, the most persuasive and which actually had something to do with the product (a category called “brand identity”).

“I may like an ad a lot, but I may not be moved to buy the product or view the brand more favorably,” said Bonnie Drewniany, the professor who teaches the class. “If you are spending more than $5 million on 30 seconds of ad time, it better move the needle.”

When Super Bowl ads go wrong, it’s often because the ad works with a specific group of people, but not with the country as a whole, Drewniany said.

“I don’t know if we really want an ad talking about the government shutdown because it’s so polarizing,” Drewniany said. “People forget the whole country is watching.”

The ad company that produces the winner of the 16th annual poll will receive the Cocky Award, according to USC’s website. Last year, Saatchi New York won the Cocky Award for the “It’s a Tide Ad” commercial featuring David Harbour, the police chief from Netflix’s Stranger Things.

The winner of the awards is invited to USC, where they are presented with a trophy. During the big game, students in the Super Bowl Commercials class are required to attend class, where they eat pizza and wings while watching the Super Bowl and critiquing the commercials, Drewniany said.

“It’s a popular class. It (enrollment) closes out the first day,” she said.

Voting will last from the end of the Super Bowl to 9 a.m. the the next day. To vote, log on to bit.ly/superadpoll.

This story was originally published February 1, 2019 at 12:00 AM.