Super Sunday
It’s well known that the NFL Super Bowl has become one of the most widely watched television events each year, with a heavy viewing audience not only coast-to-coast, but around the world. This is part of the reason why companies would spend 3 million bucks for a 30 second slot… and in some cases that doesn’t even begin to touch the cost for the spots themselves.
Over the years, we’ve seen some really great ads come through, and though most spots are more flops than successes, it’s been enough to keep the eyes of people who don’t even like football stuck on the screen.
Again, this year's ads offered a handful of greatness, a giant spoonful of OK, and some ads that left a lot more questions than they did the inspiration to purchase. I’m going to try and keep this blog simple and not try to break down every nationally aired spot. That would be rude and largely unreadable. Instead, I’ve decided to focus instead almost exclusively on a single issue that came up for me.
In this blog, I have attempted to communicate that creativity is often king, but if it’s not backed up with a sound strategy, it is bound to be more of a failure than anything. This was shown in the advertising fizzle that was the 3-D halftime extravaganza provided in partnership by Sobe, NBC, and Dreamworks pictures Monsters vs. Aliens. It seems that 3-D is all the rage again, and that’s fine, save for one major issue. Most of us don’t have 3-D glasses lying about.
The concept probably started strong. 3-D, while not a new invention, hasn’t really been used in a while and is likely to draw many viewers to the small and large screens. The horror romp My Bloody Valentine probably found much greater success in offering up the scare and gore in all three dimensions than it could have ever found based on storyline alone. Add to that the future releases of Monsters vs. Aliens and Pixar’s Up, and you’ve got the possibility of a real phenomenon on your hands. It’s a nice place to start. The problem then isn’t in the initial thinking, but in the execution. The lead-up to what could have been a truly super Sunday event was vastly under-promoted, leaving many would-be viewers in the dark, or "in the flat" as it were. I had only managed to come across one TV ad promoting the 3-D showing in the days before the Super Bowl, and the mention of where to get the needed glasses was incredibly brief. Offered at Sobe display cases nationwide the day before the game, or with the purchase of a specialty pack of Sobe Lifewater, the window to get in on what could have been a major event went largely unnoticed by the larger population and left the majority of viewers feeling cross-eyed. Then there were the spots themselves.
The preview of Monster’s vs. Aliens was pretty straight forward, offering those with the glasses only a brief taste of what was to come from the full length feature, which is fine except the old “paddleball coming at you” trick probably didn’t justify the effort of getting the glasses for many.
Then there was the Sobe addition to the mix. Last year, Sobe left many viewer questioning what the hell they had just seen. A team of lizards not promoting “Geico” danced to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” with a model. This year, director Peter Arnell opted against trying to make any sense at all and featured football players dancing ballet poorly, animated lizards wearing shoulder pads or spinning records at a DJ turntable, and characters from “Monsters vs. Aliens” popping in and out as time would allow. The 60-second period of madness hit a crescendo as the lizards, Monsters and fedora-adorned Ray Lewis starting dancing in a choreographed number, the music having evolved from a classical piece to some unmemorable original bit of music which asked the listener to “SoBelieve”.
And then… Ray Lewis turns into a lizard.
It felt like the ideas were picked by securing fractions of thought to a dartboard and then throwing those darts while blindfolded and drunk, but knowing you'd have to involve Ray Lewis. It had all the chaos of Careerbuilder’s screaming, crying, seal-riding, koala-punching romp without any of the absurd humor.
And Sobe’s spot was only in 3-D for a small percentage of the viewing population, making it twice as likely to evoke migraines.
Again, this all had the makings of a great idea, but without a proper lead-up, a coherent message, a quality concept, and appropriate event management, a great idea doesn’t mean much. For Sobe and friends, let’s hope it’s worth the 6-million plus dollars spent.
My suggestion is that next year, they should look for something really innovative options… like Miller Highlife.
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2 comments:
That's Zork from The Guild in that last commercial! Wait, I have constructive comments, but let me put them separately...
I think the Victoria's secret one is a pretty clever one. I have a friend that manages Glad products (subsidiary of Clorox). He and I were discussing the actual ROI on Superbowl ads, and it isn't actually all that hot in general (obviously there are certain products that are huge, namely beer). You also need to consider your audience which I think often companies overlook in terms of the superbowl ads. In the end he said that he authorized an ad spot in the Top Chef Pre-game show, being more fitting for his demographic and a better investment choice. This is something that I think is probably not looked into enough, since most people do watch SOMETHING pre-game.
No, excellent point. The ROI is going to be low compared to most other time slots due to the cost of placement, but there is nothing to like it for generating general impressions, which can be huge for companies. The effort then becomes deciding what your target audience is looking for, specifically withing the demographic watching the game. Think of the movie previews and how G.I. Joe, Transformers 2, Fast and Furious, and Star Trek all looked pretty much the same within their time allowed. It's because that demo is pretty well defined, but the gained points for exposure to those audiences is huge. It may not be enough to commit to purchase (which is a large part of ROI), but in the ad game, it's about as big a start as one can have. Your friend made a good call weighing that exposure to the actual commitment to purchase and opted away from the big game, but several years ago when his competitor rubbermade was relaunching its brand, the contact points and exposure for "the house that rubbermade made" was huge, and paid off accordingly.
My point was simply that a huge part of Superbowl ads is the chance to create a sort of memorable social event in the watching of it, and Sobe and Monsters vs. Aliens failed, though the start of the idea was worthwhile.
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