Boing Boing brings us this bit of news regarding the research of Dr. Marco Iacoboni, a neuroscientist at UCLA, who hooked up a group of subjects to an fMRI while they watched Super Bowl ads to see which ones would cook their noodles. Obviously, this would be a major coup in the consumer intelligence war. From Dr. Iacoboni’s report:

Who won the Super Bowl ads competition? If a good indicator of a successful ad is activity in brain areas concerned with reward and empathy, two winners seem to be the ‘I am going to Disney’ ad and the Bud ‘office’ ad. In contrast, two big floppers seem to be the Bud ’secret fridge’ ad and the Aleve [sic.] ad.

Donnie D.C., Donnie D.C.’s Lady Friend (DDCLF), Mary Milan and I did the same experiement.  Our fMRIs were more of a state of mind (the state of “fuck MRIs”) as we used beer, pizza, and a notebook. Don’t get me wrong, our test is a scientifically valid study because DDCLF was sick, I had a clean ear, and both Mary Milan and Donnie D.C. have backgrounds in neuropsychology and will soon have degrees that have more than two letters.

Here are our results for Dr. Iacoboni’s winning and losing ads:

“I’m going to Disney”: Donnie D.C. and DDCLF have not yet arrived. Mary Milan says, “I hate Disney. I don’t know why or what they did but I hate them. Oh hon, since the game hasn’t started yet, would you please check Amazon to see when Bambi II is going to arrive? I want to be sure I’m home to get it.”

“Bud ‘Office’ ad”: Donnie D.C. is explaining his football analogy. “It’s like sex. The further you get down field, the more anxious you get and when you finally get a touchdown, it’s kind of like an orgasm.” Our brains were firing but obviously for very different reasons.

“Bud ‘Secret Fridge’ ad”: [Silence]. Mary Milan is first with: “God, that sucked.”

“Leonard Nimoy Alieve”: Mary Milan is telling a story as the ad starts. No one is listening as Spock is on TV. Finally, Donnie D.C. says, “Shh! Can’t you see we’re trying to watch this?”

“The Burger King ad”: Watching this ad results in the following dialogue:

DDCLF: “What the hell is that white stuff?”

Me: “Onion.”

DDCLF: “No, the other white stuff?”

Me: ” Ewww…it’s ‘mayonnaise.’”

DDCLF: “This commercial requires a lot of decoding.”

Me: “Haha. Was it Saussure or The Burger King who said, “I’m lovin’ it!’?”

DDCLF: “That was Ronald McDonald.”

Me: “I meant ‘Have it Your Way.’ Whichever the case Saussure didn’t say it, okay?”

“The Fed-Ex ‘Caveman’ Ad”: I say, “I’m getting so sick of these Geico caveman ads…oh dang, whoops.”

After reviewing Dr. Iacoboni’s study, Mary Milan calls bullshit…

…was this all men because I can’t believe that Anheuser-Busch commercial [the one with the baby clydesdale trying to pull the carriage] didn’t win. It was beautiful.

…and in response to the neuroscientist’s finding that…

…female subjects may give verbally low ‘grades’ to ads using actresses in sexy roles, but their mirror neuron areas seem to fire up quite a bit, suggesting some form of identification and empathy.

Mary Milan gets her neuropsych smart on:

…it’s because we want to be hot too. It’s the reason the cover of Shape magazine looks the same as the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition.

For a less scientific take, click here for Seth Stevenson’s Ad Report Card on Slate.

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