Insights on 2013 Super Bowl Advertising

by | Jan 30, 2013 | Advertising, Family Ski Trips, Marketing, Moms, Parenting, Social Media, Sports, Technology, Travel

The 2013 SuperBowl is sure to be the most tech savvy advertising event yet. Super Bowl advertising can live stream on smartphones Apps, spur constant and instant social media engagement and has its own Youtube channel. Voting for your favorite Super Bowl ad is rampant across the entertainment industry with key examples like Hulu.com/adzone.

Are Ads the best part?
Per Adweek, American adults prefer watching Super Bowl commercials to the game itself, according to a survey by Chicago-based market research company Lab42. Of the 500 respondents age 18+, 39 percent said that the commercials were their favorite part of the game while 28 percent said watching the football game was their primary interest.  This is good news for advertisers spending an average of $4mm for a :30 second spot.

ROI and Pre-buzz:
Super Bowl Commercials bring entertainment and an opportunity to sell to the largest television audience of the year. Most advertisers feel that $4 million is worth the investment. The announcement of buying airtime on the Super Bowl can even bump up a company’s stock price, at least in the short-term. Per Forbes, “that surprising finding was gleaned in a study of publicly traded Super Bowl advertisers by researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder, which found that the stock price of these companies rose shortly after the media began to hype the ads’ upcoming appearance.” This study is great rationale for all the pre-buzz hype that we have discussed in past blogs.

Some advertisers like GM are questioning the ROI and spent tremendous budgets during  the play-off games. However, the line up for this year looks great so far and here are some of our favorites:

Doritos: Like last year, the brand ran a contest allowing consumer to create a spot with the winner pocketing $1 million dollars. Facebook votes elected the winner.  These are some of our favorite pre-Super Bowl ads.

VW: The brand’s campaigns are the Super Bowl’s most innovative. The pre-buzz spot utilizes Youtube’s power by incorporating all the channel’s major video stars into a happy song.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfCm9P8naDQ]

Automakers are trying to get more bang for their buck by introducing teaser photos, images, tweets and Facebook posts about their ads. Lincoln, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Audi and Kia have all released some sort of teaser for their commercials. Automotive brands traditionally represent about 60% of Super Bowl ads.

Coke: Last year Coke struggled with the engagement of its advertising. Mid-January, the brand introduced spots driving consumers to CokeChase.com to vote for their favorite team and sabotage their fictional foes.   The TV spot introduces three teams of characters — a band of cowboys, a gang of “badlanders” and a pack of Vegas-style showgirls — as they chase after an elusive bottle of Coca-Cola.  We are excited to see the final spot during the first half of the game.

Pepsi: Some brands like Pepsi will not even call their campaign a commercial but describe their Super Bowl spot as an introduction to its sponsored halftime show. Pepsi is encouraging consumers to submit photos of themselves in specific poses that will be stitched together into a 30-second spot by their agency.

Mars: The candy maker is taking an old fashioned approach. “Rather than releasing its 30-second M&Ms spot early to create some buzz — as has been the trend of late — the candy maker still believes in the power of what top North American marketer Roy Benin calls the “anticipation bubble.” Adage

Domino’s: restaurants still maximize their football sponsorships to gain momentum before the Super Bowl vs. paying for the pricey ad. The Domino’s “Dare ad” is the best ad we have ever seen from the pizza brand.

Meanwhile, we still believe Super Bowl ad creative needs to be more tailored for women because they make 80% of household purchases. Kentucky Fried Chicken demonstrated it got the message with its fun “couch gating” campaign by having a young woman play a major role.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSf-Zuo-_bU]

Our next blog will be a review of our family trip to Super Bowl 2013:NOLA and we can’t wait for Superbowl 2014 in NJ at the Meadowlands!

RELATED ARTICLES