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Mum’s The Word As P&G Campaigns Dominate List Of Most Emotionally Engaging Olympics Ads Of All Time

FMCG brand’s tributes to the role mothers play in Olympic success takes first three spots in ranking created by creative effectiveness platform DAIVID; ‘Pick Them Back Up” takes gold

Barney Worfolk-Smith

Barney Worfolk-Smith

23 Jul 2024

LONDON, SEATTLE, SINGAPORE – July 23, 2024 – A P&G campaign for the 2014 Winter Games that pays tribute to the role mums play in helping athletes achieve their Olympic dreams is the most emotionally engaging Olympic ad of all time.

That’s according to new research from creative effectiveness platform DAIVID, which found that “Pick Them Back Up” generated the most intense feelings of positivity of any Olympic or Paralympic ad.

With the Paris Olympics due to begin this Friday, DAIVID used its advanced content testing platform – which measures the emotions people feel while watching ads – to see which ads from the global sporting event elicited the most intense positive emotions. 

P&G campaigns dominated the chart, making up half the spots in the top 10, including all of the top three positions. All of the top 5 pay tribute to the role mums play in the creation of Olympic heroes. 

“Pick Them Back Up” topped the chart after 59.6% of people who watched the ad had an intense positive emotional reaction to the campaign. That put it ahead of another Winter Games campaign from the FMCG giant – 2018’s ”Thank You Mom”  – and “Best Job”, created for the London Summer Olympics in 2012, in second and third respectively. 

In fourth is another 2012 ad, the UK’s National Lottery’s “Mother”, which, inspired by the story of 800M runner Jenny Meadows’ mum, looks at how National Lottery funding helps British athletes achieve their Olympic dreams. “Strong” – P&G’s ad from the Rio Games in 2016 – is fifth.  Channel 4’s game-changing campaign “We’re The Superhumans” also makes the top six.

Other brands to make the top 10 include Nike, Toyota and Comcast. Ads that just missed out on the top 10 include Adidas’s 2012 campaign “Don’t Stop Me Now” (12th) and Channel 4’s controversial Sochi ad “Gay Mountain” (15th).  

 

MOST EMOTIONALLY ENGAGING OLYMPICS ADS – DAIVID

 

RankBrandCampaignYear% intense positive emotions
1.P&G“Pick Them Back Up”201459.6%
2.P&G“Thank You, Mom”201859.5%
3.P&G“Best Job”201258.4%
4.National Lottery“Mother”201256.9%
5.P&G“Strong”201655.9%
6.Channel 4“We’re The Superhumans”201655.7%
7.P&G“You’re Goodness Is Our Greatness”2021 (2020)55.5%
8.Toyota“Start Your Impossible”2021 (2020)55.0%
=9.Comcast“Bringing Inspiration Home”2021 (2020)54.1%
=9.Nike“To Victory”201654.1%
10.Toyota“Upstream”2021 (2020)53.8%

 

Ian Forrester, CEO and founder of DAIVID, said: “When it comes to emotional Olympic campaigns, no brand has ever gone faster, higher or stronger than P&G. The company’s incredible tributes to the role mums play in helping to put future Olympic champions on the path to Games glory really tug at the emotional heartstrings and are capable of turning even the most cynical viewers into emotional wrecks. ‘Pick Them Back Up’ is a worthy gold winner, generating some of the most intense feelings of positivity we’ve ever seen for an ad. 

“It’s also great to see Channel 4’s sensational campaign, ‘We’re The Superhumans’ in the top 6. Generating incredibly intense feelings of inspiration, the ad has played a crucial role in putting the Paralympics firmly in the hearts and minds of viewers all around the world.”

Based in London, DAIVID uses a suite of technologies – including facial coding, eye tracking and computer vision – to help advertisers optimise the business and emotional impact of their ad campaigns. 

In today’s content-saturated, always-on world, DAIVID’s solutions help marketers cut through the noise, enabling them to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of their creative at scale.

Conclusion

Methodology

DAIVID’s All-time Olympics research was conducted using the company’s Self-Serve solution, which uses a model – trained using millions of consumer data points – to predict the emotions evoked by an ad, how much attention it’s likely to generate and its expected impact on various brand and business metrics. Using a combination of computer vision, computer listening, facial coding, eye tracking, survey data and machine learning, DAIVID’s model enables advertisers to evaluate, quantify and improve the effectiveness of their creative at scale, without the need for audience panels. 

Altogether 56 Olympic ads were analysed as part of the study, ranking ads based on the percentage of people likely to have an intense positive reaction to the content. Ads from this year’s Paris Olympics were not included. To find out more about DAIVID, click here

 

About DAIVID

DAIVID is a global tech platform that enables advertisers to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of their creative at scale.

In today’s content-saturated, always-on world, DAIVID helps marketers cut through the noise. The UK-based company empowers brands, agencies and influencers to ditch the guesswork and measure the effectiveness of their content quickly and accurately across a range of different platforms, formats and channels. 

The platform’s team of data scientists then analyse the findings and provide advertisers with the insights and actions they need to optimise the emotional and business impact of their creative. Clients include EssenceMediacom, Omnicom and Snapchat.