Commercials

Super Bowl Ads: A Unique Opportunity for Undivided Attention

~ K. Quesenberry ~ Leave a comment

As we watch this year’s Super Bowl of football and advertising, there is a big lesson we can learn from this high priced marketing spectacle. A poll reported by MarketingProfs says more of us would rather visit the bathroom during the game than the commercial breaks. The same poll says the commercials beat out the game, halftime show and even food as our favorite part of the Super Bowl.

This kind of undivided attention is amazing in our current cluttered advertising environment where some claim we see 5,000 ad messages a day. And even when watching TV, a Harris Interactive survey reports people also surf the Internet, read a book, magazine or newspaper, go on a social networking site.

Why are people surfing the Internet, reading books and engaging in social media? They’re searching for content they want to see and during the Super Bowl marketers who pay the $3.8 million manage to give them just that. MarketingProfs reports people say Super Bowl ads are funnier, more creative and more memorable than regular ads. And people watch them again online, share them via social media and even email links to them.

Despite these successes many marketers and bloggers write off Super Bowl ads as being not effective in selling products. But it’s hard to pass up the 180 million viewers – top prime time shows now only attract viewers in the hundreds of thousands. And Kantar Media claims last year’s game produced sales of $262.5 million for the advertiser while Abobe says Super Bowl sponsors get a 20% increase in traffic on their websites the day of the game and higher than average traffic after.

Whether you buy a Super Bowl ad or not, the lesson here is that people like quality content whether its an ad, TV show, game or video.This is the key insight to success for marketing in social media. You don’t buy attention, you attract it with quality content. without the huge media expense. For the most part, marketers are not used to thinking this way.

The bottom line is people choose to spend time with quality content and successful Super Bowl advertisers are acting more like content producers – creating the kind of ads that keep people in their seats. Perhaps the rest of us marketers should start thinking like this all the time. Maybe the best way to beat ad clutter is to stop trying to push and instead pull the consumer to you.

Speak Softly And Carry A Big Marketing Stick

~ K. Quesenberry ~ 1 Comment

There you are watching your favorite cop, hospital, action adventure, detective series. The main character just whispered the key to the entire season and BAMM! Cut to a guy standing in front of a car yelling about total liquidation savings. You nearly jump out of your seat, the dog starts barking and the baby wakes up. But its not just the local car dealer ads that are loud even the national brands rouse you out of your dramatic slumber. Most marketers would say this is a good thing. We need the TV viewers to pay attention to our ads or our TV buy is a waste. But attention comes at what expense?

According to the findings of just released Adweek Media/Harris Poll, 86% of Americans say that compared to the TV shows themselves, TV commercials seem louder. 57% say the commercials seem much louder, while just 12% say the shows and commercials are at the same level. 93% of those who say the ads are louder say it bothers them, with 62% saying it bothers them a lot. Dolby thinks they have a solution with Dolby volume.

What can marketers learn from this? Since commercials are intended to sell products, when they become something that actually annoys consumers, advertisers need to consider better ways to get their messages across. This is not a rock concert turn the volume down! With the new pre-roll ads on Internet video are advertisers blasting Internet consumers also?

If advertisers can’t control their annoying shouting, consumers will control it for them with products like Dolby Volume or the government will step in. At the end of last year the House of Representatives voted to pass the CALM (Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation) Act, which will regulate the volume of commercials.

Marketers need to quiet down before muzzle is put on for them. Loud ads are definitely just adding to the noise and not adding to marketing effectiveness.