Snacks Top Teens' Favorite Super Bowl Ads

DETROIT – What did teens think about Sunday's Super Bowl ads? Perhaps not surprisingly, their favorites didn't always line up with adults'.

Monday, America’s Marketing High School, a nationwide online business/marketing curriculum led by the University of Detroit Mercy's Mike Bernacchi, announced the results of a nationwide teen survey of Super Bowl ads at UDM. The results were compared to those of USA Today's Ad Meter.

High school students from across the country ranked multi-million dollar ads under the supervision of Bernacchi, a well-known UDM marketing professor, and marketing instructor Paul Galbenski of Oakland Schools Technical Campus in Royal Oak. .

The students' top choice was M&M's Just My Shell introduced Sunday by a new character named Miss Brown. The ad also did well among adults, placing fourth on Ad Meter. As one student pointed out, who doesn't like to see an M&M take off its shell and wiggle?

Student picks

Students' Rank

Ad Meter Rank

Ad observations

• There were more long ads this year. Why? "It's the difference between a punch line and a story line," Bernacchi said. One in five ads was 60 seconds or longer, thanks to a trend set by Chrysler in last year's successful Chrysler 300 ad featuring Eminem.
• Social media and smartphone apps are a part of today's modern Super Bowl. There were Facebook logos and hash tags all over the place, Bernacchi pointed out. Chrysler deliberately chose halftime to air its Clint Eastwood ad because that is when the most sharing on social media occurs – even though halftime ads are not included in Ad Meter rankings.
• Movie trailers historically don't do well with adults during the Super Bowl. "But where they always seem to do well is with our high school demographic," Galbenski said. "Year after year, our high school students rank them in the top 10." This year The Avengers came in 10th with students. It was No. 21 on Ad Meter.

> Which Super Bowl ad was your favorite? .