Other than two, the Super Bowl commercials all failed. What's that you say? The blog-o-sphere and social media would argue with me, I know.
Let's start with the fact that over 45 commercials aired during the Super Bowl. Can you remember 12? 8? 5? Not easy, is it? Oh well, $4 million ain't what it used to be anyway.
But forget all that. The goal of advertising isn't be getting the blog-o-sphere and social media to write about your cleverness - well maybe it is if you;re a creative and looking to boost your own value.
The goal of any advertising should be to sell product! And by that measure, no matter how many ads you remember, I stand by the statement that the Super Bowl commercials all failed - except two.
Bob Dylan says I should let Germans make my beer. Frankly, I think my local micro-brewery does a fine job. I'm not above drinking a Coors Light, either. I'm not to even getting into the fact that Chrysler is no longer an American company! Nice of Fiat to run a patriotic ad, but I promise no one added, "Go buy a Chrysler" to their to-do list after seeing the commercial. Fail.
GoDaddy celebrated a 36-year old engineer quitting her job to join the ranks of the self-employed. Does GoDaddy know that the US is experiencing the worst long term unemployment crisis since the Great Depression. Do you think more viewers were interested in quitting their job or in finding one? I'm doubting there was a rush of people quitting their jobs Monday morning so they could set up a GoDaddy ecommerce site. Fail.
Don Cheadle riding in a limo drinking Bud Light? OK, Don Cheadle likely rides in a limo and might as well drink Bud Light. And football viewers drink beer. But I missed how this was supposed to motivate me to switch from Coors Light, so I didn't. Fail.
There must be millions who enjoy looking at David Beckham, so congratulations to H&M. Whoever they are... Hopefully, for Beckham's sake, they sell underwear. Wait! Beckham does underwear ads for Armani! Who forgot to tell H&M? Fail.
My whole life men like me, and women, too, have lusted for an exotic sports car like a Maserati. But I'm confused. Doesn't selling a car for the same price as a Hyundai Equus kind of take the bloom off the rose? Not to mention the fact that Maserati is owned by Fiat, the company that was espousing Detroit-built cars in their Chrysler ad. I'm guessing sales of $70,000 Maserati's might increase this year - from zero to some - so maybe this ad wasn't a complete fail... Unless, of course, you enjoyed brand presige among the elite who liked knowing they own an exotic automobile. Fail+.
Radio Shack is leaving the '80's behind? Shouldn't they have done that in the '90's? When was the last time you bought a radio, anyway? Maybe they need more than a store redesign. (Personal note, I participated in a College AMA competition to help re-brand Radio Shack, well, in the 80's... They didn't follow our advice.) Fail.
I could go on, and on. But there were two exceptions, commercials that proved paid ads can work and work right now:
- Bank of America's ad with U2 to support RED.
- Esurance's #EsuranceSave30 commercial.
What did these two do to succeed? They were the only two to acknowledge that you watched the entire game with your phone/tablet in your hand or within reach and asked you to do something with it. And, in return, millions took action! Right there on the spot!
Esurance got 200,000 #EsuranceSave30 tweets in the first minute and has increased their twitter followers by 90,000 since the ad aired!! (Oh, and they saved 30% of the commercial cost by running the ad after the game finished!) Win!
Bank of America, well, really U2, asked you to download a free song from their forthcoming album and in return Bank of America will donate $1 per download to the Global Fund to fund AIDS programs on the ground in Africa. While download numbers aren't available, Bank of America committed up to $8 million so it wouldn't be a stretch to say that millions of us took the requested action. I know I did. Win!
As for all those other ads that failed? They failed because they didn't do what the Bank of America/U2 and Esurance did. They didn't ask us to DO anything. They offered us 30- or 60-seconds of feel good, maybe a chuckle, as often a head-shake as anything, but they didn't ask us to DO anything - so we didn't and we won't!
Calls-to-action driving outcomes need to be the driving force behind your advertising. A hashtag or a URL in your ad doesn't cut it anymore. Your ads need to be tied to specific action - something you can measure!
If you don't ask your customers and prospects to do anything, chances are pretty darn high they won't! Because of this simple premise, the Super Bowl commercials all failed - except two.
What do you think? Let's discuss below!
