Sunday, February 8, 2009

Digital Touchdown?

We saw one of the most thrilling finishes in Super Bowl history but how was it from a marketing perspective?


The us ad agencies as ever, delved deep in to their creative heart for this years superbowl ads - the most expensive media spot in the world. 3m dollars for 30 seconds sounds even more expensive during the GEC doesn't it? 


What interests us the most this Superbowl is the channel extension into digital that brands are pushing. In such uncertain times, a 30 second tv ad for 3m seems hard to justify, but if you build in a mobile element, social marketing, search, user generated content and datacapture then it somehow seeems a little more palatable. 


Whilst many media observers review the ads on creativity, we have looked at those campaigns that have stretched the dollar value online.


E-Trade (share trading and investing) released outtakes of its SuperBowl ads online before the game to drive interest, and they unified the campaign through search, social media and the TV spots. Frosted Flakes, whilst not the most creative spot got the most from the campaign driving people online to nominate a sports playing area that needed renovation courtesy of Kellogs. 


And the loser? Denny's ran a free breakfast promotion but failed to put a URL on the TV ad... shame. 


One frustration we have in digital is spending so much money on TV spots but not backing the campaign up with something as simple as search. Brands must make it as easy as possible for consumers to find their campaign online in the days following the TV - even if brands spend money on campaign terms alone (for the Fujitsu guys out there, this means buying "Economatch" terms in search), more on that issue for Superbowl brands here


As for our favourite TV ad? Doritos Snowglobe user content ad wins it (again) for us. Incidentally, you can watch them all on the Ad Blitz on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/adblitz


Tell us your favourite.


Cheers


Nic







2 comments:

  1. I don't know about favourites as such but Superbowl is definitely an interesting time to see how brands react to the new year in terms of creative direction.

    Twitter has taken a substantially heavier role this year for brands. in terms of getting user feedback and getting a more immediate feel for what they can do better next year.

    Myspace has created an aggregated site for all the ads during the superbowl season - online seems to be substantially well blanketed with content but TV is still the dominating source for promotion in the US during the game. I think it is fair to say digital has played a very integral role in extending the branding message past the traditional channels to give the message a bit more longevity. Shame about Denny's promo - someone in marketing is surely going to get a bit of heat from their bosses.
    You can check out the Ads @ http://www.myspace.com/thebiggame

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  2. Just found some interesting stats on the ad results from the super bowl ads. http://tinyurl.com/bd9rj5
    So it appears even damage can register as Good ad recall for GoDaddy? Risky take to get buzz but this could be purely accidental for a user reaction. Have a peek at the article from Marketing charts if you are interested in numbers behind the ad.

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