Thinking back to the not so distant past, namely the time when digital video recorders didn’t exist and the web didn’t know exactly what it would be when it grew up, you could argue that Super Bowl ads played a greater role in the advertising landscape than they do today. There didn’t exist a great way to view them if you missed the game. For many people, missing a good commercial involved hearing about it from a friend or co-worker and then keeping an eye out during future programming in hopes of seeing a replay. For commentators of ads, it meant not leaving the television or resorting to an analogue way of taping, the rarely discussed VHS recorder. Today, you don’t have to watch the game to see the ads. The ads have become content for the web, and they exist seamlessly online, accessible on any connected device. It might seem like death to the Super Bowl as an ad vehicle, but despite the fragmentation of media, or perhaps because in some strange way because of it, the Super Bowl has still managed to maintain its status as a must watch event and for so many companies a must advertise event, all this in addition to the economy and the impossible to rationalize price for airtime.
To Be or Not To Be
For about a minute it seems like fun to contemplate doing a Super Bowl commercial, but for those in charge of a company’s brand who must decide if, when, and how much to spend, they probably get very little joy out of the Super Bowl. Take the somewhat hyped, within the ad world at least, decision of Pepsi to pull out of the Super Bowl this year after some rather impressive streak of consecutive years advertising. Coke, on the other hand, didn’t exactly double down, but they didn’t cut back. No doubt each brand manager is nervous about their decision. And the piece we in the online world tend to forget, is the upfront cost to create the slot, plus the audience testing, revisions, etc. All that work, for what is basically a one-time event that should get some play later on, but like a movie premier, you really do get just one chance to pop.
Free
Given the general state of the economy, you might have expected more companies to incorporate some type of giveaway; that is until you consider the economics involved. Dockers ran such an ad, one involving pantless singing men, that had the unfortunate luck of running right after another ad leveraging the pantless theme for part of it. Their "Hey, we’re giving away free pants," might have implied a lucky bonanza for those watching, but a trip to the site, reveals a flash heavy site with a giveaway not the type of giveaway that some people might have been hoping for. Staple of the American diet Denny’s didn’t hold back. If anything, they went too far. Not only did they run commercials offering a free Grand Slam (time restrictions), they had to try and top that by also running a spot touting a free Grand Slam on your birthday too. That’s a lot of money just to give away stuff.
Two types of Recall
Going through YouTube’s adblitz, it reminds me of an article from the Wall Street Journal breaking down the actual time spent playing football versus other activities, like the ads. The Super Bowl had a lot of ads. No wonder people go over the top; it can’t be easy trying to get attention in that marketplace. Looking for comments on this topic led to a rather humorous observation, "All the gimmicks and dumb-ass pranks did not make me remember the products… except Go Daddy. As god-damned cheesy as those spots are, you will always know that when a hot chick rips off her blouse, you can get domain hosting for a dollar a month." Memory is one type of recall. The other is what Toyota is going through right now. For them, unlike Kia, Honda, Hyundai, etc., their ads didn’t tout new vehicles. They spent their money addressing a quality / safety issue. For them, the ad was about a literal recall of millions of cars. In some ways, that’s a great use of an aggregated audience, but it does seem like a Catch-22, because the recall from people might be that Toyota is hurting.
Google
The phrase "Hell has frozen over" was used more than a few times when describing one of the most unexpected ad appearances, this one by the normally advertising adverse Google (adverse when not leveraging their own inventory). To me, it seemed like something Apple would have approved – minimalistic yet comprehensive. It’s amazing from a super big search box and blinking cursor can do and to see something most of us do everyday played out on the bigger screen. The spot did not do what many might have used it for – to tout one of their new products or help advance some other obvious agenda. I wouldn’t have minded some convincing on why I should use Buzz. Overall, that the commercial seemed to have held up as well as it did can be considered a big win. This is their first such spot in more than a decade of existence and in more than six years since they could easily have afforded such a commercial. Unlike Pepsi not doing the Super Bowl, you could almost argue that Google had more to lose by doing it. Thankfully, it will be a long while before we see one from Facebook.
Glimpse of the Future
The critic in all of us makes it tempting if not fun to comment on all the ads, which achieves some of the marketers’ aim. Any performance marketer for example probably paid close attention to the mobile phone question and answer text service. I remember the commercial and seeing that it isn’t a subscription service, but I can’t remember the shortcode. (No wonder we like subscription services.) I liked seeing it, and while it might be a sentimental favorite given the performance marketing space’s ties to mobile, one of the biggest takeaways for me had less to do with what the ads actually promoted and more what they implied about the future as a consumer. Beers have new flavors, cars new models, but those don’t have any disruptive power. For me, the two that mattered were those for Flo.tv but even more so for the new Vizio TV. We all knew that television and the internet would collide, but the question was always how. Now, we are starting to see the answer, and it is looking a lot like it does on the mobile phone – apps. We’re seeing services bundled with TV’s – Pandora, Twitter, Facebook, and more, but we’re not seeing a super large TV with a keyboard. We’re seeing the beginning of a URL-less internet, and that is a very interesting future indeed.
Network
