December 28th, 2015

2015 Top Food, Beverage and Household Brands of the Year

Author

Ace Metrix

Eat, drink and be merry– and don’t forget the Lysol. These five brands earned the highest average Ace Score within the highly competitive Food, Beverage and Household categories.

Candies & Snacks Brand of the Year: Hershey’s

Brand of the Year Hershey’s
Category Candies & Snacks
Average Ace Score 629
Percent Above Category Norm 10 percent
Dominant Power Desire

The Candies & Snacks category hosts 78 brands who collectively delivered more than 200 unique pieces of creative in 2015* but only 12 brands qualified for Brand of the Year status, having debuted 5 or more new ads this year.

Hershey’s earned its number one position with an average Ace Score of 629, 10 percent above the 12-month category norm. It’s little surprise that Hershey’s ads are powered by Desire– due in large part to the visuals of delectable chocolate and a tried and true visual brand that generates Pavlovian responses among viewers.

There are three Hershey’s ads among the top 10 in the category and four ads among the top 10 in terms of Desire. The well known brand experienced a 3 percent year over year improvement in overall Ace Score. With such strong brand association, many brands, Hershey’s included need little time to communicate and remind us of their offering. Sixty-five of the ads in the category are :15 and Hershey’s ads dominate the category exclusively with short form ads.

Hershey’s 2015 portfolio is made up of a combination of new product intros and ads promoting the new nickname, ‘pip’ for the well-known segmented bar. The brand strikes an incredibly effective balance of attention-grabbing visuals, feel-good music and an alluring product. On average, 35 percent of consumers said the “Product” featured was the Single Best Thing about the ads.

Hershey’s highest scoring ad “It’s Worth It” is a luscious introduction to the Hershey’s chocolate covered caramels that appealed to men and women of all ages and compelled them to leave lengthy optional comments. Of the 324 optional verbatim comments left for this particular ad, 15 percent mentioned the “music,” 19 percent – the “chocolate,” 10 percent the new “caramel” and a variety of words to describe their desire to buy and enjoy including “want,” “delicious,” “yummy,” “appealing,” and “hungry.”

Hersheys-verbs

 

Top Performing Hershey’s Ads of 2015

brand

category

air date

score(s)

It's Worth It

Hershey's

Candies & Snacks

06.01.2015

651

Way to Start

Hershey's

Candy & Gum

02.16.2015

648

Everybody's Chocolate

Hershey's

Candies & Snacks

04.04.2015

643

 

Packaged Food Brand of the Year: Hunt’s

Brand of the Year Hunt’s
Category Packaged Food
Average Ace Score 623
Percent Above Category Norm 9 percent
Dominant Power Desire, Relevance

Packaged Food is the second most competitive category in terms of number of qualified, competing brands with 23, second to Retail’s 45.

Hunt’s produced a series of strong brand spots focused on their natural process of flash steam peeling and their organic options. The spots were driven by Desire and Relevance and earned an average of 90 percent brand recognition.

Hunt’s top scoring ad is also the highest scoring ad in the category. “Home of Tomatoes” earned an Ace Score 693 (21.3 percent above the category norm). Audiences appreciated the message most of all with 26 percent calling it the Single Best Thing. A look at the blended word cloud, representing 1386 optional verbatims left for the Hunt’s ads speaks to the consumer perspective on the creative approach.

Hunts

Top Performing Hunt’s Ads of 2015

brand

category

air date

score(s)

Home of Tomatoes

Hunt's

Packaged Foods

09.14.2015

693

Peeled with Flash Steam

Hunt's

Packaged Foods

09.23.2015

663

They Do It Differently

Hunt's

Packaged Foods

10.05.2015

658

 

Beer Brand of the Year: Samuel Adams

Brand of the Year Samuel Adams
Category Beer
Average Ace Score 554
Percent Above Category Norm 9 percent
Dominant Power Information

Of the 25 beer brands to introduce new creative in 2015, just eleven qualified for this year’s Brand of the Year honor having put out at least 5 new ads.

2013 BOTY winner Samuel Adams reclaims the honor after being runner up to Budweiser in 2014. While there are many creative paths taken among beer brands, Samuel Adams’ dominant personality trait is Information. Each spot uses a story telling approach, educating viewers not only on the Samuel Adams product and process, but general beer facts. With a tagline “Know More, Love More,” the brand teaches consumers to appreciate the seasonality and science behind their brews.

The top performing Samuel Adams ad “Brew” earned an Information score 29 percent above norm (689) – the highest Information score for any 2015 ad in the category.

While current consumers of the Samuel Adams brand connected best with the ads, the series resonated well with those unfamiliar with the brand, a segment that awarded an average Ace Score of 597 (17.5 percent above norm).

It’s worth noting that top competitors Guinness and Budweiser have taken similar approaches in their creative as of late, describing their history and their processes– a shift from both brands’ 2014 stable of emotionally charged ads. The two brands earn 6 of the top 10 spots for the year including Budweiser’s Super Bowl spot “Brewed the Hard Way” and Guiness’ “Gates,” a 90 second spot that was originally introduced online.

SamAdams-persexperience

Top Performing Samuel Adams Ads of 2015

brand

category

air date

score(s)

Brew

Samuel Adams

Beer

11.23.2015

577

Fresh Brew

Samuel Adams

Beer

11.23.2015

564

Drink It Hard

Samuel Adams

Beer

07.06.2015

559

 

Curious how the Beer category changed this year and the distinctions of each brand’s body of work? Contact us to request a meeting.

Non-Alcoholic Beverage Brand of the Year: Coffee-Mate

Brand of the Year Coffee-Mate
Category Non-Alcoholic
Average Ace Score 592
Percent Above Category Norm 7 percent
Dominant Power Information

In a category that includes soda behemoths and an expanding suite of healthy juices, sports drinks and bottled waters, Coffee-Mate swoops in to grab the crown, outperforming the category norm by 7 percent and slipping ahead of 2014 Brand of the Year Snapple.

Coffee-Mate’s 2015 portfolio was steeped in information, often using humor to introduce us to new flavors. The two top performing ads were short :15 holiday-themed pieces that featured a Gingerbread Joel, the Claymation character who was identified by 17 percent of respondents as the best thing about the ads. “Gingerbread Man” earned scores well above norm across all components of persuasion but, like many of the Coffee-Mate portfolio, was powered by Information. Watch the three highest scoring Coffee-Mate ads below.

Coffee-Mate

Top Performing Coffee-Mate Ads of 2015

brand

category

air date

score(s)

Gingerbread Man

Coffee-Mate

Non-Alcoholic Beverages

10.19.2015

642

Great Holiday Flavors

Coffee-Mate

Non-Alcoholic Beverages

10.19.2015

595

Big Flavor

Coffee-Mate

Non-Alcoholic Beverages

01.19.2015

582

Curious which sports drink is giving soda brands a run for their money? There are 47 brands and nearly 200 ads in the Non-Alcoholic category just this year, and nearly 1,000 others since 2010. Contact us for a category discussion.

Household Brand of the Year: Lysol Cleaners

Brand of the Year Lysol Cleaners
Category Household
Average Ace Score 620
Percent Above Category Norm 6 percent
Dominant Power Relevance

The Household category saw ads from 54 brands this year, with ten brands qualifying from Brand of the Year. Showing the depth of the category, eight brands have ads in the top ten overall list for this category, with iRobot and Bounty appearing twice.

Lysol’s 2015 ads are a mix of information-driven ads that deliver facts about killing germs and product uses, and relatable everyday uses for the products, such as cleaning a classroom or preventing a sick child from spreading the flu. The brand’s top three scoring ads, “Many Different Yucky Germs”, “Little Boy Tries to Infect the Household”, and “Use it for More Than Just Trash Cans”, top the Relevance category norm 8 percent, 10 percent, and 4 percent respectively. In fact, “Little Boy Tries to Infect the Household” earns the highest Relevance score of the category. For two of these ads, the “Product Itself” is named the Single Best Thing About the Ad, with “Message” being named it for “Little Boy Tries To Infect The Household”.

Lysol clearly knows their demographic, scoring consistently above the category norm among consumers with children at home. By including stories of children’s ability to pass along germs, they make a connection with this audience.

Lysol Demo Chart

Top Performing Lysol Cleaners Ads of 2015

brand

category

air date

score(s)

Many Different Yucky Germs

Lysol Cleaners

Household

10.19.2015

670

Little Boy Tries To Infect The Household

Lysol Cleaners

Household

01.12.2015

640

Use It For More Than Just Trash Cans

Lysol Cleaners

Household

07.20.2015

631

Curious how creative from the other 53 Household brands performed this year? Contact us for a category discussion.

Check out all of the Top Brands of the Year here.

 

Qualifications

About Ace Metrix Brand of the Year

Ace Metrix scores every nationally airing television advertisement and the majority of digital video ads across 24 industries, 96 categories and is therefore uniquely qualified to report a brand’s overall effectiveness across the entire video advertising industry’s body of work over a year, as well as year-over-year. To qualify for Ace Metrix Brand of the Year, brands must have debuted five or more unique pieces of creative within a category containing more than 100 pieces of creative and five qualifying brands. Ace Metrix gathered more than 3.5 million responses, including nearly 2 million verbatim comments left optionally for the 6,500+ new television video ads in 2015. Each ad is scored against a unique panel of 500+ consumers, demographically balanced to the US census for age, gender and income. The Ace Score is the holistic measure of ad creative impact and includes data on attributes such as Persuasion, Likeability, Information, Attention, Change, Relevance, Desire and Watchability. Hundreds of qualitative consumer verbatim responses are collected for each ad and inform additional measures such as the Emotional Sentiment Index.

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