The USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter is an annual survey taken of television commercials by USA Today in a live poll during the telecast in the United States of the Super Bowl, the annual professional American football championship game of the National Football League.
The survey, which started in 1989, uses a live response on a zero-to-ten scale (zero being the worst, ten the best) of focus groups based in McLean, Virginia, the newspaper headquarters and one (or more) site(s) around the country.
As the Los Angeles Raiders routed the Washington Redskins, 38–9, the Apple commercial, not the game, was the most-talked about item around water coolers the very next day.
Since then, major advertisers have used the game, paying as much as seven figures (averaging over US $5 million for one 30-second slot as of 2018[update]),[1][2] excluding production expenses) to showcase their work and generate buzz that many people tune into television's biggest event of the year just to watch the commercials, not the actual game.
[3] A new element was added for 2012, as Facebook users and those logging onto the USA Today website were involved in a second survey that lasted until February 7 at 6:00 pm EST.