With the Super Bowl representing Television’s biggest event, ever, it creates an advertising platform that makes marketers salivate. How could I resist talking about it?
A few stats to establish the reach; 30-second spots averaged 3M$ (roughly 100,000$/second) and the game that was watched by 100M people. Of those commercials, only 17% included Social Media influence – baffling. OK, some brands like Telecomm companies don’t want to have a social presence (can you imagine the volume of complaints?). I think the take away here is of that 17%, who did it well? Here’s a look at the auto-industry.
Volkswagen
In my view, the clear winner for what they did before the Super Bowl even begun. Sharing their Darth Vader impersonator early, they spread the commercial through social media and hit 12M views (now at 18M) on YouTube before kick-off. They did a great job by not sharing their social addresses at the end of the commercial in my view – taste over efficiency here.
Chrysler and Eminem
To me this commercial dwarfed Lipton’s Brisk lengthy spot by focusing on a sense of community and featuring the story for the underdog. Their measured up favorably online as their spot was cited nearly 20,000 times online in the first hour it aired. It didn’t have built in social media, however it was rock solid it didn’t need a tweet push.
Ford Motor Company
Can’t remember or YouTube Ford’s commercial? You won’t. They sat out the Super Bowl in favor of reaching out to bloggers and engage over the landscape. Winner. If you think Chev did a better job, remember they friended someone before a first date and read an audio facebook feed, give me a break.
Chevrolet
I went back and forth a couple times on this one. On the one hand, they did have some solid spots but I just can’t get past their facebook feed being read by the car. This ad just ruined their commercials for me 🙁
To see these ads visit Ad Age . One last note, why can’t advertisers make it easy for us and provide their Facebook URLs or Twitter addresses instead of “find us on Twitter” – no way I am searching for your name from my BB 😉
The Brand Bowl has me asking a lot of questions. You pay big dollars for an ad. But what happens when the conversation is over and when people return back to their daily lives. I often wonder about this since I am one of those fans who tune in once a year and I often wonder how the NFL capitalizes on this and if they end up retaining any of their one day fans. This can be questioned with their sponsors and the advertisers as well. What is value of a one day fan?
Great point, definitely hard to measure the ROI as you’re pointing to. I feel like you hit the nail on the head – what do people carry forward after the brand bowl? Now that is a team of researchers!