Interwebology: Super Bowl Sunday more than just football
For years Super Bowl Sunday has been the biggest and most expensive day in television advertising. A 30 second spot costs in excess of $2.5-million, and networks encourage advertisers to submit their ads early as there tends to be more submissions than available time slots.
This year marked some interesting developments, however. Pepsi, who has spent almost $150-million over the past decade on Super Bowl advertising campaigns decided to forego television advertising entirely in favour of The Pepsi Refresh Project, a $20-million social media campaign that encourages people to find creative ways to “refresh” their communities. Even if the project turns out to have been a failure in advertising, it will be a success in the world of philanthropy.
Inverting this scenario was Google, a company that is a massive online player and chose to air an ad on Super Bowl Sunday. But unlike other companies that pull out all the creative stops and jealously guard their content until the appointed hour, Google simply posted their Parisian Love video, which had proven to be popular online over the past few months.
PepsiCo has a bit of a history with social media. Three years ago they crowd-sourced their Mountain Dew campaign ideas. Their DEWmocracy Campaign continued in 2009 when consumers helped decide which product would become a permanent part of their line.
Longtime rival Coca-Cola did pay for televised advertising, but also complimented it with a social campaign designed to creatively disseminate the classic Coke bottle image alongside a promise to donate up to a quarter million dollars to the Boys and Girls Club of America.
Many advertisers submit ads only to be rejected. However, this is hardly a death sentence, as the videos are often picked up online. While rejection letters may cite “failure to meet [unspecified] criteria,” public opinion often steps in to make its own decisions.
This year two big controversies were over GoDaddy and ManCrunch. GoDaddy submitted an ad featuring “Lola,” a retired football player turned effeminate women's lingerie designer. ManCrunch, a dating site directed towards gay men, also had an ad rejected that featured two football fans furiously kissing after their hands touch in a bowl of chips. Between these two incidents, allegations of homophobic policies were rampant.
GoDaddy didn't suffer any major losses, as polls showed they were still among the top five most discussed advertisers this Super Bowl season. The others were the notably absent Pepsi, a controversial pro-life ad by Focus on the Family, and ads from Taco Bell and Coca-Cola. Marketing analysts at Alterian gathered their data from numerous sources ranging from conventional media to micro-blogging sites like Twitter.
Analysts at TiVo have announced that a Doritos ad was the big winner of those that went to air. Their top five most viewed ads also included an additional Doritos ad, a Snickers commercial featuring Betty White, an ad for Intel, and Focus on the Family's pro-life spot.
Hulu listed Focus on the Family in their top five most viewed, but for likely unintended reasons as it hit the top spot for most disliked. Oddly, their most popular video was a Motorola ad featuring Megan Fox, which was both the fifth most liked video and also the second most disliked video.
YouTube also got into the approval game by launching “AdBlitz,” a channel where users could watch and review commercials within moments of their televised debut. The ad with the most votes will be featured on their home page February 18. BrandBowl2010 gathered similar data based on realtime Tweets during the game.
Such realtime information is easy to gather. During last year's game, roughly 12 per cent of viewers were multitasking with Internet use at the same time, predominantly on social networking sites.
Advertising's biggest day going the social media route has statistically verified what has been long suspected: we are shifting into a new paradigm in advertising. While some companies are simply trying to be more subtle, complimenting conventional advertisements with product placement (the highly visible Coke glasses set in front of each American Idol judge, for example), many are now pouring their focus into social media.
Startups like 140 Proof are sponsoring Twitter clients in exchange for ads being slipped into feeds, but companies can't afford to simply follow trends, they must be on top of them. One of the Internet's most popular sites, Facebook, is actually pulling Microsoft ads in favour of its own revenue options and models, despite Microsoft's quarter billion dollar investment two years ago.
Microsoft must remain hyper-aware of its advertisements, since Internet Explorer users are the most likely to click on ad links. Firefox users are slightly less likely, followed by Safari and Chrome users. Congruently, Bing users also click on ads far more readily than Google users.
Social media, once a fad, is now a focal point in even the largest of businesses. For companies this means trying to stay ahead of a diverse, fickle demographic. For users this means becoming even more aware of the source and intention of content.
This year marked some interesting developments, however. Pepsi, who has spent almost $150-million over the past decade on Super Bowl advertising campaigns decided to forego television advertising entirely in favour of The Pepsi Refresh Project, a $20-million social media campaign that encourages people to find creative ways to “refresh” their communities. Even if the project turns out to have been a failure in advertising, it will be a success in the world of philanthropy.
Inverting this scenario was Google, a company that is a massive online player and chose to air an ad on Super Bowl Sunday. But unlike other companies that pull out all the creative stops and jealously guard their content until the appointed hour, Google simply posted their Parisian Love video, which had proven to be popular online over the past few months.
PepsiCo has a bit of a history with social media. Three years ago they crowd-sourced their Mountain Dew campaign ideas. Their DEWmocracy Campaign continued in 2009 when consumers helped decide which product would become a permanent part of their line.
Longtime rival Coca-Cola did pay for televised advertising, but also complimented it with a social campaign designed to creatively disseminate the classic Coke bottle image alongside a promise to donate up to a quarter million dollars to the Boys and Girls Club of America.
Many advertisers submit ads only to be rejected. However, this is hardly a death sentence, as the videos are often picked up online. While rejection letters may cite “failure to meet [unspecified] criteria,” public opinion often steps in to make its own decisions.
This year two big controversies were over GoDaddy and ManCrunch. GoDaddy submitted an ad featuring “Lola,” a retired football player turned effeminate women's lingerie designer. ManCrunch, a dating site directed towards gay men, also had an ad rejected that featured two football fans furiously kissing after their hands touch in a bowl of chips. Between these two incidents, allegations of homophobic policies were rampant.
GoDaddy didn't suffer any major losses, as polls showed they were still among the top five most discussed advertisers this Super Bowl season. The others were the notably absent Pepsi, a controversial pro-life ad by Focus on the Family, and ads from Taco Bell and Coca-Cola. Marketing analysts at Alterian gathered their data from numerous sources ranging from conventional media to micro-blogging sites like Twitter.
Analysts at TiVo have announced that a Doritos ad was the big winner of those that went to air. Their top five most viewed ads also included an additional Doritos ad, a Snickers commercial featuring Betty White, an ad for Intel, and Focus on the Family's pro-life spot.
Hulu listed Focus on the Family in their top five most viewed, but for likely unintended reasons as it hit the top spot for most disliked. Oddly, their most popular video was a Motorola ad featuring Megan Fox, which was both the fifth most liked video and also the second most disliked video.
YouTube also got into the approval game by launching “AdBlitz,” a channel where users could watch and review commercials within moments of their televised debut. The ad with the most votes will be featured on their home page February 18. BrandBowl2010 gathered similar data based on realtime Tweets during the game.
Such realtime information is easy to gather. During last year's game, roughly 12 per cent of viewers were multitasking with Internet use at the same time, predominantly on social networking sites.
Advertising's biggest day going the social media route has statistically verified what has been long suspected: we are shifting into a new paradigm in advertising. While some companies are simply trying to be more subtle, complimenting conventional advertisements with product placement (the highly visible Coke glasses set in front of each American Idol judge, for example), many are now pouring their focus into social media.
Startups like 140 Proof are sponsoring Twitter clients in exchange for ads being slipped into feeds, but companies can't afford to simply follow trends, they must be on top of them. One of the Internet's most popular sites, Facebook, is actually pulling Microsoft ads in favour of its own revenue options and models, despite Microsoft's quarter billion dollar investment two years ago.
Microsoft must remain hyper-aware of its advertisements, since Internet Explorer users are the most likely to click on ad links. Firefox users are slightly less likely, followed by Safari and Chrome users. Congruently, Bing users also click on ads far more readily than Google users.
Social media, once a fad, is now a focal point in even the largest of businesses. For companies this means trying to stay ahead of a diverse, fickle demographic. For users this means becoming even more aware of the source and intention of content.
