Sunday was the Super Bowl, with all the fanfare that comes with it. Super Bowl viewers tend to fall in to two camps: Those who watch the game for the love of the game, and those who watch the game for the love of the ads. I'm squarely in camp 2.
But watching the Super Bowl for the ads has become a very different game all in itself in the last few years. The rules have completely changed. No longer are we watching ads alone, or even just with our family, friends and chicken wings in our living room. We're live commenting on all the ads in realtime, in chats and on blogs and hugely on Twitter. With every moment that went by during the game, hundreds of ad tweets flew past the screen on Twitter Search, passing judgement on each ad, from "horrible" and "unwatchable" to "brilliant" and "best ad of the night".
The other shift in adwatching is that ads are no longer just visible during those precious moments between play. Whereas in years previous, if you ran to refill the salsa bowl you might have missed the best ad of the entire night, now within minutes of each ad being aired they become available on the Internet for review. Now, even those who were stuck with non-US simulcast coverage can partake in the fun reasonably quickly.
The prevalence of Twitter combined with the ability to instantly re-watch the ads gives the advertisers incredible and immediate insight into "how" their ads were accepted. Instead of waiting for an eventual hoped-for bump in revenues, brands can immediately measure the buzz. Some, such as GoDaddy, are still being talked about extensively today, which was obviously their aim - GoDaddy is notorious for submitting highly sexed, usually inappropriate ads that often end up getting banned from TV, but at least it gets them talked about. Opinion is starkly divided:
@bandergrove: #superbowlads GoDaddy.com is terrible at advertising. But they get TONS of name recognition and for being notorious and having banned ads.
@durjoy: @seanaes Completely agree. I am a pretty active customer and these ads are so sleazy, I may switch registrars. #superbowlads #godaddy
Still, GoDaddy sees their ads as a universal win, stating "“This Super Bowl ad campaign turned out to be right on the money for us. In fact, I’d say it’s our best work".
Unfortunately, Doritos and their "Bus" ad went for the cheap thrills too, thus potentially alienating the female viewership (also known as "the demographic that only watches for the ads, so it's wise not to tick them off") but perhaps appealing directly to traditional male viewership:
@topmomma: 2 sexist commercials in a row- good job guys! Doritos and GoDaddy #superads09
@shonuff444: If only Doritos actually made girls' clothes come off, cause I like Doritos... and girls with no clothes #superbowlads
In contrast, The Hulu ad with Alec Baldwin seemed to be a universal winner with the crowd:
@bitNomad: Damn those aliens from hulu. "What are you going to do, turn off your tv and your computer?" best I've seen so far #superbowlads
@ThisIsTrue: Ogilvy exec with interesting analysis of #superads09 -- and we agree: Hulu was the best spot. http://bit.ly/11IcPj
@mikeprasad: BTW, Hulu Superbowl Commercial = AWESOME! "Because we're aliens, and thats how we roll!" #superbowlads http://is.gd/i2IN
@danieldoyle: I know it's "just advertising," but I want to repeat: I thought the Hulu ad was *unusually* hilarious and spot-on. #superbowlads
(As a side note, the reason I don't have Hulu linked as your location to view the Super Bowl ads is simple: Hulu doesn't work outside the USA. Booo!)
All of the above ads have something in common: People talked about them instantly and are still talking about them, good, bad or otherwise, which makes them an advertising win. In contrast, the universal losers this morning seem to be the ads that didn't get any lip service and are seemingly doomed to obscurity. The H&R Block Grim Reaper Ad seems to fall in to this category, as does the Taco Bell Dinner Ad. And there was also surprisingly little chatter about the 3D Sobe ad, featuring football players dancing to elegant ballet tunes. Last year's SoBe ad with Naomi Campbell and assorted Lizards dancing to Thriller was simple, gorgeous and hard to top - and SoBe probably should not have even tried. Another difficulty with this ad was the 3D glasses requirement, which was completely shut out to those of us in Canada and, judging from the tweets, far from universal even in the USA. The lesson to be learned here is that when you make your ad reliant on a gimmick, you have an uphill battle to win over those who haven't even heard of your gimmick in the first place.
From a social media perspective, some smart advertisers took it even further. The eTrade baby, for example, not only posted his new Ad on YouTube right after it aired, they also had new videos ready for their audience to watch including eTrade Baby Outtakes ("I want to punch the economy in the face!") as well as a Twitter account with live color commentary ("Washing down some spicy buffalo wings with a cold beverage in my sippy cup.") These initiatives, inexpensive and brilliant, guaranteed that the brand could engage in the conversation from the moment the ad aired, and they could therefore expose their viewers to even more messaging immediately. Not too shabby, eTrade.
In the end, was it worth it for the Super Bowl advertisers to participate in the Super Bowl, given the rumoured $100,00 USD it cost per second to show their ads? Difficult to say. I'll leave you with a point to ponder: conspicuously absent from the Ad Frenzy were both General Motors and Chrysler. This could be read as wise cost constraints from two companies on the brink - but if the payoff was known to be huge, it would still make sense for the companies to invest in this kind of advertising. When you take that into consideration, their absence could simply mean that both companies know that the high price for the prime timeslots just wasn't going to be worth it.
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