Posts for 'TideToGo'

OK, today no rant, just one more little insight to offer from Super Bowl ads.

Yesterday I highlighted the 5 ads (out of the total 52) which had a broadband component. They were:

GoDaddy - promoting Danica Patrick's "Exposure" banned ad and other videos

TideToGo - promoting "MyTalkingStain.com" a fun microsite

SoBe LifeWater - promoting "Thrillicious.com" a microsite where 2 more spots with the dancing lizards can be seen

Sunsilk - promoting "LifeCantWait.com", a microsite with a UGC contest which is not yet active

Pepsi - promoting "PepsiStuff.com", where users can download videos and music

I'm able to track click-throughs to each link I share in these emails. I thought you might be interested to see a graph of these clicks from yesterday. Note they're shown as an index, not actual numbers, with a starting index value of 100 for Sunsilk.

As you can see, VideoNuze email recipients expressed a pretty strong interest in the GoDaddy.com Danica Patrick ad. I'm sure many of you are not surprised since it has a pretty overt potential payoff for visitors.

The point is this: I think SoBe LifeWater missed a huge opportunity to keep viewers engaged, which would have both improved the ROI on their Super Bowl ad spend, and also deepened viewers' engagement with the brand. While the Campbell spot was hugely entertaining, it did little to power ongoing engagement. Contrast this with GoDaddy, which no doubt had people pouring into its web site since the spot ran, with ongoing chatter and brand-building taking place.

I love the Super Bowl ads as much as anyone. I never stop being amazed by the creativity and humor on display during each year's big game. This year was no exception: screeching squirrels, a strutting heart, shrunken heads, talking babies, the list goes on. For what Super Bowls ads are and always have been, they're terrific. My problem is that I believe broadband video allows Super Bowl ads to be much more than what they are and always have been. But the agency world does not seem to be getting this message.

Two years ago I wrote "The Ten Million Dollar Super Bowl Ad?", where I outlined a scenario under which a 30 second spot could someday go for ten million bucks. How? By combining the best of brand advertising (the big emotional play) with the best of online advertising (the big measurable, performance-oriented play).

I wrote in that post: "What I envision is that the 30-second spot during the game will become the viewer's introduction or re-introduction to the brand or product. Numerous online, broadband-centric tactics will follow, with video being the center of the action. In football terms, the 30-second spot will morph from throwing a long pass (which is accompanied by high drama, but low probability of an actual score) to executing a more consistent ground game (accompanied by lower drama, but a much higher probability of an actual score). With this added measurability and a direct feedback loop, marketers will have much less anxiety about whether to ante up for the big game (and therefore the price will spiral upward).

I thought agencies and marketers would see this light and rush toward it. Boy was I over-optimistic. After watching all 52 Super Bowl ads this morning (thanks AOL), I am completely dismayed to report that, by my count, only 5 ads had any broadband video component:

GoDaddy - promoting Danica Patrick's "Exposure" banned ad and other videos

TideToGo - promoting "MyTalkingStain.com" a fun microsite

Life Water - promoting "Thrillicious.com" a microsite with a 2nd spot with the dancing iguanas 

Sunsilk - promoting "LifeCantWait.com", a microsite with a UGC contest which is not yet active

Pepsi - promoting "PepsiStuff.com", with Amazon (ok, more focused on music than video)

All of the other 47 ads, representing tens of millions of dollars of clients' money, followed the same game plan from Super Bowls' past: go for either the clever, the funny or the gross, in an attempt to create buzz and fond memories for fans.

For me, this hidebound behavior showcases agencies at their most disappointing: unable to break out of the box, recognize new consumer engagement opportunities for their clients or embrace new technologies. Their inability or unwillingness to be more progressive is at the heart of why the whole advertising industry is in such chaos, with an increasing share of total spending shifting to online each year.