Phelps vs. Shark Provides Latest Win for Boeing Veterans Ad Spot

Sunday's Phelps vs. Shark broadcast on Discovery, to kick off its annual Shark Week event, was a swimming success for online conversation, even if there ended up being doubts about the competition aspect of the program. The interest leading in, however, made it a potentially attractive place for advertisers, including Boeing, which has put its "Veterans Make Us Better" spot front-and-center all year.

According to iSpot.tv, the ad's racked up over 419 million impressions -- nearly 90 percent of its total TV impressions -- since debuting in February. iSpot tracks TV ads 24/7 across linear, VOD, OTT and time-shifted viewings, from a panel of 10 million connected TVs. Of those impressions, 401 million are also live, showing that Boeing is reaching viewers in real-time.Those viewers are also paying attention to the spot, too. Across the life of the ad, it's scored a 97.01% average view rate, with 94.8%of viewers watching the ad to completion. "Veterans Make Us Better" even surpassed those high figure during Phelps vs. Shark, coming in at 98.41 average view rate (among the top five ads during the program, according to that metric).It ends up that Discovery Communications properties have been winners for this ad all year, too -- hence the placement during Phelps vs. Shark this weekend. The Science Channel and Discovery alone make up nearly a quarter of the spot's total impressions, and that number only grows when you add American Heroes Channel and the History Channel as well.Those networks deliver a key 55 and over age demographic for Boeing given the veterans focus (38.3% of the ad's views have come from that group). And in the case of Phelps vs. Shark, it also helped reach audiences it typically doesn't hit as much. Phelps vs. Shark viewers skewed 31.6 percent toward the 18-34 bracket, while just 25.8 percent of the total audience for "Veterans Make Us Better" have fallen in that range.Given this most recent peak, Boeing appears to have once again found success with this ad spot. Considering the high audience metrics each time out -- especially on Discovery programming -- it would seem there's no stopping this commercial just yet. So maybe Boeing, perhaps more than Michael Phelps or that great white shark, ends up the biggest winner of Shark Week so far.