Some Super Bowl commercials are touchdowns and others are flops, but a group of Northwestern students knows what sells.

Graduate students in the McCormick School of Engineering conducted a survey on this year’s Super Bowl ads to evaluate their entertainment and marketing value.

Technology developed by students Glenn Allison, Rohit Bhat and Bryan Tabiadon consolidated votes cast via Facebook, the iPhone and the Internet into a single platform, enabling real-time feedback on the commercials from viewers.

The study concluded that the Super Bowl ads had more entertainment than marketing value.

“If you look around the Web, a lot of results have to do with popularity,” Allison said. “We not only asked if they liked the ad, but whether it would increase purchasing.”

Viewers were asked to rank how much they liked each ad and whether it increased or decreased their interest in the product. The entertainment and marketing scores were combined into a vanity score, which showed whether the commercial built preference for the brand, or only entertained.

The students took interest in ad effectiveness after taking a marketing class with Dr. Alexander Chernev, a Kellogg professor who helped with the survey. They developed the technology on a budget of less than $5,000 and attracted respondents by posting messages on different communities, advertising on Facebook and using personal contacts.

Planning began in early 2007 and the technology was implemented and launched within the last six months. The survey has received more than 10,000 responses to date, with polling still underway.

After they complete this program, the three students will stay together. The Super Bowl study marks the first project of their new company, MIMIEO, named after a cartoon character who took risks in life and business and never gave up on his vision, Allison said.

MIMIEO is in discussions with several companies interested in using the technology and plans to conduct a survey of the Oscars, although the subject of the polling has not been determined.

“It’s exciting,” Bhat said. “We’re strategizing what we want to do next, where we want to take our company.”