Hyundai Hopes to ‘Add More Joy’ in Most-Seen Auto TV Ad

A Hyundai spot highlighting various deals moves from second to first place week-over-week in iSpot’s ranking of the most-seen automotive TV ads for March 11-17. The commercial ran up 185.2 million national TV ad impressions, with top programming including NBA games (20.1 million impressions), men’s college basketball (10.8 million) and The Voice (10.7 million). ABC was the No. 1 network by impressions (18 million), followed by NBC (14.4 million) and Fox (13.2 million). According to iSpot’s Creative Assessment, this ad had an 87% brand match (the percentage of survey respondents who remembered it was a Hyundai ad after watching it), above the recent automotive industry norm of 76%.

With 155.5 million national TV ad impressions, Jeep takes second place with its “Celebration Event” spot promoting the latest Grand Cherokee models. News played a large role in impression generation: MSNBC delivered 38 million impressions, followed by Fox News (13.3 million). On the programming side of things, while men’s college basketball was tops with 14.4 million impressions, the rest of the top five were all news-related: The Beat With Ari Melber (9.5 million), Special Report With Bret Baier (5.4 million), Alex Witt Reports (3.3 million) and CBS Saturday Morning (3 million). 

The third-place spot from Dodge serves as a “last call… to grab the wheel of a current generation Charger or Challenger.” It had 137 million national TV ad impressions, with men’s college basketball (20.6 million impressions) as the top programming by a wide margin; Dateline NBC delivered 6.9 million impressions and Law & Order generated another 4 million. Looking at top networks, MSNBC led with 19.2 million impressions, followed by NBC (18.7 million) and Fox News (12.6 million). Per iSpot’s Creative Assessment, a full third of surveyed viewers considered the visual scenes the best part about the ad. 

Infiniti’s “In the Attic” remains in fourth place week-over-week, receiving 131.3 million national TV ad impressions. A quarter of those impressions came from airings during men’s college basketball (33.3 million), while the 55th NAACP Image Awards telecast delivered 8 million and Today 3rd Hour 6.7 million. Top networks by impressions included ESPN (32.7 million), NBC (10.8 million) and ESPN2 (8.5 million). 

Subaru has an eye toward the future (by way of the past) with the No.5 ad, which notes that “96% of Subaru vehicles sold in the past 10 years are still on the road.” Over half of its 121.6 million national TV ad impressions came from primetime ad airings. Looking at all dayparts, Good Morning America was the top impression-generating programming (8.5 million), followed by men’s college basketball (7.8 million) and Young Sheldon (5 million). CBS led for networks, delivering 24.6 million impressions, while ABC provided 21.1 million and NBC 12.6 million. 

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1. Hyundai: Getaway Sales Event: Add More Joy

Impressions: 185,221,006

Interruption Rate: 3.21%

Attention Index: 92

Est. TV Spend: $1,388,055

2. Jeep: Celebration Event: Room for the Unexpected 

Impressions: 155,511,771

Interruption Rate: 3.22%

Attention Index: 97

Est. TV Spend: $845,072

3. Dodge: Last Call: Grab the Wheel 

Impressions: 137,035,486

Interruption Rate: 2.44%

Attention Index: 99

Est. TV Spend: $660,447

4. Infiniti: In the Attic 

Impressions: 131,270,924

Interruption Rate: 1.43%

Attention Index: 107

Est. TV Spend: $688,856

5. Subaru: What the Future Holds 

Impressions: 121,621,393

Interruption Rate: 3.11%

Attention Index: 98

Est. TV Spend: $1,311,104

Data provided by iSpot.tv, The New Standard for TV Ad Measurement

TV Impressions - Total TV ad impressions delivered for the brand or spot.

Interruption Rate - The percentage of devices that were present at the beginning of the ad but did not complete watching the ad. Actions that interrupt ad play include changing the channel, pulling up the guide, fast-forwarding or turning off the TV. The Interruption Rate is measured on a scale of 0 to 100%.

Attention Index - A comparison of the ad’s Interruption rate against its specific media placement. The Attention Index is measured on a scale of 0 to 200, where 100 is the average and means the ad is performing as expected.

Est. National TV Spend - Amount spent on TV airings for the brand’s spots.