General marketing

At least the game was super

By DR ⋅ February 8, 2008 ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

I’m always fascinated by the commercials that are revealed during the Super Bowl — and usually much more so than the game itself. Most years, wherever I’m watching, the TV sound is turned *up* during the commercials and back down again for the actual game. However, for me, this was the most disappointing commercial crop in years — maybe ever. So many of the commercials that aired failed to communicate a clear consumer benefit with their product. And many were just puzzling. A unibrowed woman selling nuts? A guy breathing fire granted from a beer that gives you “everything you want”? I’m not ready to call Super Bowl advertising dead (even if creativity and smart messaging seems to be). In fact, from an economic standpoint, the practice is thriving; this year it cost the most money yet to be part of the big game — a reported $2.7 million per slot, or about $90,000 a second. A second! And viewership was as high as ever: 46 million homes, and an estimated 90 million viewers, second place only to the final episode of M*A*S*H. Nielsen has some other interesting data in their Super Bowl recap report that’s worth taking a look at (including the fact that some people are actually watching commercials even though they have a DVR, the very piece of technology that was supposed to make the 30 second completely obsolete).

One of the trends I find interesting is that advertisers are finally catching on to this thing called the Web. And some of the more successful advertisers are using it to truly integrate their communication.  Take a look at this Google trend data for some of the day’s advertisers: Go Daddy stands out with a significant spike in traffic:

I always thought it was really interesting for a company trying to bridge the gap between online and offline media, using the Super Bowl as a platform. Go Daddy has reportedly had some success doing this (now #1 in market share for registering domain names), and even though their execution was crude, gratuitous, and low-budget in my book, it may have worked. At 1.5MM visits to their website (they claim), let’s say 15% of those users actually buy a basic domain name @$10 a pop. Right there they’ve recouped their expenses (excluding the costs to actually produce the commercial). I would imagine that Pepsi or Bridgestone or Audi, or any of the other advertisers would be hard pressed to beat that rate of return in such a short period of time. Sure, some would argue that by advertising on the Super Bowl, you’re priming the consumer for a purchase consideration bias sometime in the future. But if I’m company CMO, I’d be looking to recoup my investment as fast as possible and measure the impact of my mass media expenditure.

Some commercials were hilarious, but not because they tried to be. The new hybrid GMC Yukon, with the “Why push? Why grow? Why dream?” self-congratulatory message about building an SUV hybrid that could help the planet, and then reading the small print on the bottom that says the car gets “22 mpg”. A message that really rings hollow. And it’s an ugly car.

Here are some criteria that I think should help guide a decision about Super Bowl spot:

1) Your product or service appeal to a mass audience. In other words, everyone *could* theoretically be interested in the product I’m showing on TV. The viewership for a Super Bowl is just about as broad as you can get for any TV program. Showing an ad for a very niche product (say financial retirement services) automatically turns much of the mass audience into wasted reach. In other words, you’re paying for reach (e.g. to young adults) that you probably don’t need.

2) Your product is new to the world. From this year’s crop, consider the case of Pepsi Max. Prior to the super bowl, few people had probably heard of this new brand extension. Plus, given that the majority of households in the US watching the Super Bowl probably have a complimentary product (potato chips) in front of them and an addiction to caffeine (the clear Pepsi Max differentiator), running a TV ad could make sense.

3) You have the commercial creative that clearly connects your product to a consumer need. And you do it in a memorable way. It’s almost as if some advertisers are just running commercials on Super Bowl Sunday out of habit — how else can you explain Budweiser running multiple ads that were so disconnected from their product attributes. Then again, maybe I’m just disconnected from the rest of the country.

4) You’re finding ways to use the Web to increase the longevity of your message. Beyond the entertainment value, you’re offering viewers the chance to get something extra by visiting your Website and the chance to get the product online. It’s not really enough to put an easy to remember url at the end of a commercial and call it a day.

There were some companies that I think did a good job with their spots and met some of the criteria above, like Tide and eTrade. But it’s hard to imagine any of this year’s ad class becoming a greater part of pop culture the way that past advertisements did. Or more importantly, actually helping the companies that put those spots on the air to move product. In years to come, people won’t remember the Planter’s nuts woman, but they will remember what a thrilling game it was. And as long as the games are competitive, that’s a trend I can live with.