Commercial Success

Traci Freling, marketing professor in the College of Business, is rebooting her 2013 publication in the Journal of Advertising Research that investigated Super Bowl ads and their effectiveness.

“Analytics are so much more sophisticated now,” says Dr. Freling. “Now, you can tie a Super Bowl ad to whims of the stock market and the effects on an individual company’s stock. We can code and analyze ads to see how well they perform, taking into account when they air and specific executional aspects, like humor or celebrities.”

She and her research team—Jonathan Barnes, a doctoral student at Louisiana Tech University, Ryan Freling, a professor at Louisiana Tech, Doug Grisaffe, a UTA marketing professor, and Jin-Woo Kim, an associate professor at Georgia Southern University—will examine 1,100 ads spanning two decades with 20 different characteristics.

“We’ll see what worked in the past, how that is changing, and if the tried and true ‘recipe’ is still effective,” Freling says.

Freling will incorporate key findings of the research into her “Integrated Marketing Communications” class. She and her students will also discuss advertising costs and whether the $7 million price tag for a 30-second commercial is worth it. The aim is to have the study ready for publication prior to Super Bowl LVIII on Feb. 11, 2024.