Tag Archives: Taco Bell

Superbowl Ad Recap

Ads and Social Media

Well, the 49ers almost made it. Ugh, so close. I could hardly sit still watching the 4th quarter. However, it’s fair to say the first half of the game was rather dull. Luckily, I was preoccupied playing “ad bingo” until things picked up.

This week is going to have a little less structure and a little more free-form talk. We just want to pull out some things we noticed this year with the Super Bowl ads. There were some funny ads, some grandeur, and others just icky (yes, Go Daddy). Also, Dodge’s “God Made a Farmer” ad had us Midwesterners all up in a nostalgic tizzy.

But what separated this year’s Super Bowl ads from the past? The emphasis on social media, the interaction between consumers and the companies, the attempt to connect – that’s what was different.

Twitter was King

According to Marketing Land, there were 52 national TV commercials during the Super Bowl. Of those 52 ads, 26 mentioned Twitter – that’s 50 percent! Facebook only got 4 mentions, and Google+ was left in the dust with none. But isn’t G+ reportedly the No. 2 social network in the world? Hm, interesting.

Let’s take a look into Twitter then, since it was the hot topic.

Hashtags

While 26 ads featured Twitter, did their hashtags actually work? Did Subway’s clunky hashtag “#15yrwinningstreak” find its way into onto our home feeds?

Super-Bowl-Hash-Tag-Infographic

^^Those are pretty good numbers for Doritos and CK, and as Sysomos mentions, the two ads that used their own name as a hashtag had better results.

If we look at those numbers on their own, thousands of tweets for Doritos looks great, but if you consider the millions of tweets in America every day, that’s actually a pretty small number. While many tweets were about the Super Bowl or the advertisements, few people actually used the designated hashtags.

That doesn’t mean people did tweet about the Super Bowl ads. Taco Bell received 215,000 tweets after their funny “Viva Young” commercial – and they didn’t use a hashtag.

So maybe the mentions of Twitter in the ads didn’t quite work, but Twitter mentioning the ads sure did.

Power Outage

Forbes had a clever line about the power outage – “Call it the Super Bowl of real-time marketing.” Usually viewers are wrapped up in the game and ads, but the power outage slowed things down. Since there were no commercials during the outage, people grew bored, pulled out their smartphones, and started chatting on social media – about the game, the ads, and who pulled the plug.

Smart advertisers knew what to do with the outage with a spike of tweeters online. Companies like Walgreens, Oreo, Tide, and Audi hit the Twittersphere and capitalized the opportunity by tweeting clever lines about their product and the outage.

The power outage was the epitome of real-time marketing.

tide-super-bowl-black-out-tweet

Oreo-dunk-dark-tweet17

Wrap Up

Maybe Twitter was more popular this Super Bowl because of its immediacy and simplicity. A consumer can tweet without talking too much attention away from the game. But why did Facebook lose so much attention? And why did Google+ receive no love for the second year in a row? Let us know what you think, and we can toss around ideas.

Go More In-Depth…

We never want you to feel limited to only what we’ve posted. Here are a list of other articles you can check out:

Super Bowl Sunday

Super Bowl and New Media

Think of the insane work that goes into only a few hours of national greatness called The Super Bowl. The food, the drinks, the stadium, the clothing, the uniforms….even the parking at the stadium. Millions of dollars in transactions are spent preparing for one night – check out some crazy stats from Time Magazine.

And then there are the commercials.


^^ Volkwagon’s Darth Vader commercial was one of the biggest hits during the Super Bowl.

Without the million-dollar commercials, it’s safe to say the Super Bowl wouldn’t be as glamorous as it is now. Some viewers watch more for the ads than the game. Even my focus shifts if the Packers aren’t the playing…

Advertising in a New Age

Technology changes drastically every year. Consumers want to be engaged more every year. Super Bowl advertisers don’t want to lose their connection with their 111.4 million viewers. So how are advertisers using new media this year?

Pick the Ending

    • Doritos is letting viewers pick which homemade commercial to air during the Super Bowl – a tactic they’ve used before. But ABC News says Coke is doing something a little different. They’re letting viewers pick the ending. And they’re meeting the viewer halfway. People don’t have to log in at Coke’s website to vote, they can also hashtag their pick on Twitter. You have to admit you are much more likely to cooperate when it’s through a platform you already have (Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc.). Whether or not this ends up working well for Coke or not, they’re catching on…

 

Sneak Peaks/Trailers

    • Some companies have tried showing entire commercials to consumer, which has worked, but marketers from places like Proctor & Gamble and Kraft foods are trying a different approach.

      ^^Tide’s “sneak peak” banner to create buzz for the real deal on Sunday.

      According to the NY Times, P & G and Kraft are offering up a sneak peak/trailer of their commercials. They are also encouraging consumers to spread talk about the sneak peaks on social media. Proctor’s goal is to generate buzz with their “teaser campaigns.” Will it work? We’ll find out after the Bowl if saving the big reveal for Sunday was the right move.

 

^^Kraft’s Mio Fit Sneak Peak

Premiere of a New Product

    • After the advent of the iPhone and Droid phones, the Blackberry has struggled to hold on to their market share. Research in Motion stated they will reveal the new Blackberry 10 at the Super Bowl. Other than that, they’ve been pretty hush hush. Volkswagon pulled a similar stunt when revealing the revamped Beetle design, but not many companies go quite that big. RIM needs a big move like the Super Bowl, because Blackberry is struggling. This is another campaign to keep an eye on and follow up after the game.

 

Go More In-Depth…

We never want you to feel limited to only what we’ve posted. Here are a list of other articles you can check out:

 

Wrap Up

Next week we will do a follow up of the ads aired during the Super Bowl – What worked? What didn’t? Did P & G pull of their sneak peak strategy?

Stay tuned, and if there’s something that interests you or you want us to talk about, let us know.