Tweet

Super Bowl Ads Super Marketing or Super Waste of $

Guest post by: Mark Tewart

Article Overview: it was fun to watch the advertisements. I watched the ads not from a football fan or TV viewer’s perspective, but from a marketing perspective. My goal was to figure out if each ad was a super ad or a super waste of money.

Super Bowl Ads Super Marketing or Super Waste of $

My wife is from Pittsburgh, so you know what I was watching Super Bowl Sunday. Being that I am a life-long Bengal’s fan, it was painful for me to watch the game. Although the game wasn’t played well by either team it was fun to watch the advertisements. I watched the ads not from a football fan or TV viewer’s perspective, but from a marketing perspective. My goal was to figure out if each ad was a super ad or a super waste of money.



The cost per ad in a Super Bowl time slot is reported to be somewhere between $800,000 to $2,500,000. When you hear these figures you probably drop your jaw and say “Wow” just like I do. How could one commercial be worth that much money? Can it possibly pay for itself?



I judged each ad by several criteria to determine was it worth the money or not. I also judged the ads from an automobile dealer’s perspective to see if anything could be learned and be used on a smaller scale.



First, I judged whether the ad caught my attention or not. This can be accomplished through humor and other emotional connections. Some of the commercials grabbed you immediately and compelled you to watch while others almost forced you to lose interest from the beginning. Remember, market share of mind proceeds market share.



Next, I judged if the commercials kept my attention and created interest in the product or service. Some of the commercials grabbed your attention and then got lost in their journey to reach their final destination. A simple question of “What are we trying to accomplish?” would have eliminated this problem.



Another important criteria was did the ad create a desire to either find out more about the product or service or to buy it. The biggest lesson to be learned here is that some advertisement companies sell a bill of goods to their clients. The ad company gets the client all wrapped up in the creative factors such as how funny it is or how clever the production is. However, the real reason for the advertisement is to sell something now or in the future.



As an example, I remember one funny and clever ad that showed a woman on an airplane getting up to go to the bathroom in the dark and trying to climb over a male passenger who was sleeping. Next the lights came on and the male passenger awoke to the women straddling him and being in an embarrassing position. However, I can’t tell you who the company was, what their product or service was or how the ad related their benefits. In my opinion, the company would have been better served to spend the money on a huge party. At least it would have improved company morale. Unfortunately the ad accomplished nothing.



On the other hand, Fed-Ex had a creative and humorous ad that featured a prehistoric man attaching a large bone that was to be delivered using a large prehistoric bird. The bird was attacked by another animal and the delivery was not successful. When the prehistoric man went back to the cave and told another man what had happened, the man replied “You should have used Fed-Ex.” The ad was funny, reinforced the brand, the slogan and the overriding benefit of their service. The ad is memorable and creates emotional anchors of fear and confidence. The ad created fear of using another service while also creating confidence in the Fed-Ex brand. Brilliant!



Another good example was Budweiser. Budweiser ran multiple commercials that were effective. The size of the Super Bowl creates a huge reach. However, by running multiple effective ads, Budweiser created frequency as well. Budweiser accomplished in one Super Bowl game what many companies could only dream of accomplishing in a lifetime of a company. Once again, brilliant!



As a Dealer principal, most likely you can’t afford an expensive multi-year image campaign. You must bring buyers to your show room floor now. You must use direct-response marketing that gets immediate results. You can’t afford the mistakes made by many of the companies advertising in the Super Bowl. You want, need and deserve Super results.

Related Articles
  Time for Apple to release a 25th anniversary Mac
  Assumptions Anyone?
  What the Super Bowl Teaches Us About Successful Branding
  What Does Your Gut Say?
  Entrepreneurs: The New Superheroes

Article Tags: advertisement, advertisements, automobile dealer, bengal, commercials, desire, emotional connections, final destination, football fan, humor, journey, market share, perspective, proceeds, real reason, share of mind, super bowl, time slot, tv viewer, waste of money



Related Forum Posts
Re: Super Mario Dethroned - You people are crazy. Super Mario will NEVER be dethroned! Vive la Mario & Luigi! I'm sorry, but remembering those days playing Super Maria for Nintendo and wondering when I would finally hit the last level and be able to beat the evil dragon for my perfect princess will never die. Wii is fantastic, but I'd still prefer the rights to Mario - if even for sentimental value.
Victoria's Secret - Too Sexy? - This will be upsetting for some men. I just heard a report about Victoria's Secret and it was interesting. Their sales were down drastically in the 4th quarter of 2007 and the report was about how they are thinking the company has gotten too far away from the heritage that made it the blockbuster company it is. They are thinking the ads etc have become too sexy and the plan (at the moment) is to make the ads more sophisticated. That would be like the Super Bowl commercial which was very tasteful, but very different from any Victoria's Secret I've seen lately. Who do you all think the current sexy ads are targeting? I think its the men that they hope will buy these items for their female significant others. I hate to give Omarosa any kudos - but most women aren't "sold" on an item by an ad of a near naked sexy woman. Shri
Video Resources - Awesome resources - thank you Andy. I've been working on the book trailer creation and promotion chapters in my next promo book and this info is wonderful. There will be a couple more links to resources included in the book. Can you tell us some more about the Super program? I'd have to run it on my desktop after looking at the system requirements. It looks like it will do all sorts of things. Shri
Re: How To Be Rich - [quote="TheRainmaker":tst8wsa8]Sounds great. What exactly have you found to be eye opening??[/quote:tst8wsa8] The first eye opener was measuring wealth by your total assets 1 Million - 2 Million Pounds The Comfortable Poor 2 Million - 5 Million Pounds The Comfortably Off 5 Million - 15 Million Pounds The Comfortably wealthy 15 Million - 40 Million Pounds The Lesser Rich 40 Million - 75 Million Pounds The Comfortably Rich 75 Million - 100 Million Pounds The Rich 100 Million - 200 Million Pounds The Seriously Rich 200 Million - 400 Million Pounds The Truly Rich 400 Million - 999 Million Pounds The Filthy Rich Over 999 Million Pounds The Super Rich
Re: Has anyone bought targetted visitors? - I had the same experience Orxan had when buying guaranteed targeted traffic. Waste of money!


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

The State of the Sustainable Furniture Industry

The Value of Small Businesses

Looking for an Easy Online Business Opportunity?

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.