Pepsi Rated Tops Among Most-Popular Commercials
Pepsi-Cola advertising featuring singer Lionel Ritchie and an archeology class of the future unable to identify a Coca-Cola bottle was the most-popular ad campaign of 1985, a consumer research firm said Thursday.
Miller Lite’s commercials, which feature testimonials from retired athletes, placed second, while McDonald’s, the fast-food restaurant chain, was third in the listing compiled by Video Storyboard Tests Inc.
The New York-based research firm reports annually on the most-popular commercials based on more than 24,000 interviews in which it asks consumers to identify the most outstanding television commercial they have seen. The results were announced at a luncheon of the Advertising Club of New York.
“It was not an easy year for commercials,” said Dave Vadehra, president of Video Storyboard. “They had a tough year to follow in the blockbusters of the previous year.”
A year ago, Wendy’s placed first with its “Where’s the Beef” commercials. This year, Wendy’s placed sixth with a campaign that included a commercial spoofing a Russian fashion show.
Vadehra said advertisers also faced an increasingly uninterested public. An increasing percentage of people claim to pay no attention to commercials, he said, while those who do admit watching commercials are able to recall only 2 1/2 of the 500 that they are exposed to on average each week.
At $302.7 million, McDonald’s was the biggest spender among the companies that made the 25 most-popular campaigns.
French’s Mustard, whose commercials showed animated sandwiches that refused to open for other brands of mustard, placed 23rd despite spending only $2.2 million on its 1985 campaign. Vadehra said that was the lowest budget ever to make the top 25 in the eight years the survey has been done.
Nine brands made the 1985 list after failing to do so in 1984: Acutrim dieting aid, Bartles & Jaymes wine cooler, Budweiser, California Wine Cooler, French’s Mustard, Miller High Life, New Trails granola bars, Pizza Hut and Purina Cat Chow.
