SuperBowlAdvertisers.com

The Super Bowl as Cola War Battlefield

AdAge has reported that Pepsi has secured exclusive rights for its ads to appear in the first half of Super Bowl XLIII.  With this deal, Pepsi managed to block other marketers of non-alcoholic beverages from advertising during the first half of the game.  While Anheuser-Busch has employed this tactic over the years, this is the first time that Pepsi has struck such an agreement.  Coca-Cola is reportedly working on a similar deal giving it exclusive rights to the third quarter of the game.

Audi Cites Consumer Buzz in Announcing Super Bowl Ad

Audi has announced that they'll back with a new 60-second spot set to air in the first quarter of Super Bowl XLIII.  In their press release, Audi hyped the online buzz created by last year's Godfather-themed spot.  The company also reported a 200 percent increase in traffic to the Audi website resulting from last year's ad, and claimed that "Audi R8" was the most popular Google search term immediately following the airing of the ad.  It's encouraging to see Audi using online buzz to both measure consumer impact and to justify their return as a Super Bowl advertiser.

Current Super Bowl XLIII Advertisers

As of December 11, 2008 the following advertisers are confirmed for the 2009 Super Bowl:

• Anheuser-Busch
• Audi
• Bridgestone
• CareerBuilder
• Cars.com
• Coca-Cola Co.
• PepsiCo's Frito-Lay
• General Electric
• GoDaddy
• Hyundai
• Monster
• NFL
• Pedigree
• PepsiCo Beverages

The Second Round of NFL's Super Ad/Super Fan contest is Underway

The third edition of NFL's Super Ad is currently in its second round of votes, where fans can vote for their favorite inspirational story from their favorite NFL star.

In addition to this, NFL teamed up with Samsung HDTV for the Super Fan: That's How I See It campaign.  The same idea applies, but this time fans from around the country give their personal stories about memorable football moments.

Check out the videos for Super Ad and Super Fan.

See the official  press release.

Cymfony's Super Bowl Analysis is a Double Award Winner!

  Pardon me while I toot our horn and go blatantly hard sell for one post!

I'm pleased to announce that the Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communications recognized our Super Bowl Advertising Audience Impact Report with 2 awards!

Super Bowl Ads -- It's not about the game!

Welcome to this year's inaugural post of TNS Cymfony's Super Bowl Advertisers blog!

A WSJ article today says that many long-time advertisers are wondering if, in this tough economy, they should invest $3 million for :30 seconds on the game. The key is not the game: they key to ROI is the PR activity before the game.

Counting Down to Super Bowl XLIII

Now that confetti has been cleaned up and the tears of Patriots fans have been wiped away, we can start to look forward to next year’s Super Bowl.

Super Bowl XXLIII will be played on February 1, 2009 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Florida. This will be the fourth time the Super Bowl will be played in Tampa and the second time it will be played in Raymond James Stadium, which is the home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  The Tampa Host Committee has set up a site at www.TampaBaySuperBowl.com to provide visitor, volunteer and sponsorship information for the event.

NBC has the broadcast rights for the game and Al Michaels and John Madden are expected to announce the game.   Variety reports that the NBC will run a special episode of “The Office” and follow it with the debut of the new Office spinoff during the valuable post-game slot.

As soon as information on ad packages and rumors of advertiser interest become available, you'll find it all here at SuperBowlAdvertisers.com

YouTube Viewers Choose Tide To Go

The Tide to Go “Talking Stain” ad was selected as the number one ad in the YouTube 2008 Super Bowl advertising poll.

Video clips of the Super Bowl commercials on the YouTube AdBlitz site generated over 20 million views in the week since the February 3rd game.  Viewers cast 900,000 votes rating each spot and the “Talking Stain” earned the received the most votes and the highest overall rating.

Tide created a fantastic microsite at www.mytalkingstain.com where you can upload a picture, record a voice over and create your own talking stain ad.  The site is brilliant.

Kevin Burke, P&G’s North America Laundry Marketing Director agrees:

"The number of people that continue to watch the ad and visit our website has vastly exceeded our expectations.  We are thrilled about the positive response from consumers and ad critics across the country"

"Consumers have spent more than 15,000 hours on mytalkingstain.com since launch, and we have already received a considerable number of video entries from consumers."

Rounding out the top 5 on the YouTube poll are:

2. Budweiser Clydesdales
3. SoBe Thriller
4. Bridgestone Critters
5. e-Trade Baby Spit Up

The Bud Clydesdale ad had the top spot on most of the other viewer ratings sites, but the top 5 is pretty consistent across the polls.   

How does social media discussion and ad effectiveness research line up?

Pretty well, actually.

And looking at where the lists align and where they diverge is instructive of what makes an ad talkworthy and what doesn't. The results suggest that the pre-game PR program is a significant variable in predicting post-game discussion. (Peter Kim has an interesting post today on using brand monitoring as a predictive tool). But also, while driving word of mouth (WOM) is a great result, highly effective ads don't have to spur WOM, raising the question of whether WOM should be used as a predictive tool in ad effectiveness.

My colleague reported the results of the TNS Commercial Performance Index study listing the following as the most effective ads, (and I'm adding the next few to his list):

• Budweiser Clydesdales
• Coca-Cola Parade Balloons
• Bridgestone Tires: Screaming Animals
• NFL: Living a Dream
• Bud Light: Wine & Cheese
• Tide-to-Go: Talking Stain
• Bud LIght: Fire
• E*Trade: Baby & Clown

Here are the most-discussed brands in social media (through Monday):

• Anheuser-Busch (FYI, many posts simply say things like "Loved those Bud ads" without a specific ad reference)
• Audi (which scored a respectable CPI of 188)
• Pepsi (the Justin Timberlake ad scored a solid 216 CPI)
• Coca-Cola
• Go-Daddy
• Bridgestone
• E*Trade

GoDaddy is easily explainable: CEO Bob Parsons has pursued a "get-people-talking" Super Bowl ad strategy for years, and clearly cares more for the word of mouth value than the quality of the ad.

The presence of Audi and Pepsi shows that what an ad lacks in effectiveness can be made up with good PR program ahead of the game to draw attention to the brand. Pepsi was the most-talked about brand during January while Audi was sixth in pre-game discussion. (Bud, Coke, Bridgestone, and Doritos rounded out the most-discussed brands before the game -- see a pattern?)

The absence of the NFL from social media discussion shows that an ad doesn't have to spur WOM to be effective. While the ad told a nice story, there was nothing talk worthy about it, so its absence is understandable. 

The absence of Tide is a bit more puzzling to me. It was a unique enough idea, and was backed up with the right online elements: a good microsite and viral "create your own talking stain" function. Would be interested in your thoughts on why it didn't get the level of talk it could have.

TNS Reports on the Most Memorable and Best Performing Super Bowl Ads

Our parent company TNS surveyed over a thousand adults between 18 and 54 years old Monday to determine how they felt about the ads in Sunday’s Super Bowl. This survey is interesting because they looked beyond the basic "did you like/dislike the ad" question to see which commercials were recalled the next day and which ones were most influential and effective at delivering a brand impact.

Ad Recall
First they asked about which ads people remembered the most the next day.  E-Trade’s ads proved to be most memorable; both of their talking baby spots were among the most recalled ads.  Here’s the top 5:

1. E-Trade: Spit up baby - (70% recall)
2. Bud Light: Will Ferrell Semi-Pro - (69% recall)
3. Budweiser: Clydesdales - (67% recall)
4. Sobe LifeWater - (67% recall)
5. E-Trade: Talking baby with clown - (66% recall)

Best Performing
The panel evaluated each of the commercials and promos on three dimensions - commercial likeability, positive brand impact and future purchase consideration. TNS combined the scores on these factors to come up with a single score, called the called the Commercial Performance Index (CPI),  to represent the ad’s effectiveness.  Here are the 5 ads that performed the best:

1. Budweiser: Clydesdales (+387 CPI)
2. Coca Cola: Balloon (+373 CPI)       
3. Bridgestone Tires: Screaming Animals (+352 CPI)            
4. NFL Living A Dream (+321 CPI)

These spots also scored at the top of most consumer rating polls. In fact the Bud Clydesdale ad won the influential USA Today Ad Meter.

Our analysis of ad-related consumer discussions in social media after the game supports these findings.  The Anheuser-Busch ads (which include all the Bud and Bud Light spots) generated twice the volume of conversations than the second place brand (Audi). The discussions about both of Coke’s ads were extraordinarily positive.

We saw an interesting trend emerge as advertisers announced their ads plans and released teasers in the last week or two before the game.  Many advertisers were leaving the “shock and awe” theme behind in favor of themes of social responsibility and family values.  We wrote more about that here.

Sure, you had your guys attaching jumper cables to their chest to jump start a car, but "nice" won this year. The ads with upbeat, positive messages were effective with consumers and also generated additional brand value in word of mouth.