Why Internet Companies Are Such Terrible Super Bowl Advertisers
January 24, 2012 by Kevin Michael Gray
We are only two weeks away from the most watched sports game of the year. Every year millions of people nation wide gather together in their home (or colleagues home) and watch the Super Bowl… and the super bowl ads. Dorito's has taken the ;crowd sourced' approach to create the 'best' (I say that very loosely) super bowl commercial. Majority of the companies that get into the 'Super Bowl Advertising Game' not only spend millions of dollars for a 15-30 second ad but they also spend millions of dollars on hiring celebrities that do absolutely nothing for their brand. Today's featured article comes from AdAge.com and offers an in depth look at just that… read more below:
We are less than two weeks out from the Super Bowl, which means it's time to start wondering which internet company will turn a huge marketing investment into a colossal fail during the big game.
It's become something of an annual ritual over the last 10 years: an upstart web player throws away a massive marketing investment on an ad that will be forgotten or else remembered for the wrong thing, rather than the desired product, service or idea. Last year's Groupon Super Bowl debacle was just the latest installment.
Unlike other most more seasoned TV advertisers, it's almost like the management teams of some of these internet companies have embraced the Super Bowl simply as a way of saying, loudly and proudly, "I'm here!" But announcing you're here to 100 million-plus Super Bowl viewers is not the prescription for instant fame and success if the message isn't right. Forget the fact that 30 seconds costs a mere $3.5 to $4 million. Forget testing to make sure the ads resonate with consumers. Internet companies often seem to decide late, design quickly, and deliver the "creative" just in the nick of time. Their inability to provide necessary information that will resonate with Super Bowl viewers is as spectacular a fumble as the 30-second spot on the Super Bowl is an opportunity.
The fact is that everyone knows what a Dorito or a can of PepsiCo looks like, so conveying information about the product is not as important for these brands as it is for brands like GoDaddy.com and Salesforce.com, which are not every-day products used by consumers. The reality is that the bar is higher for many of these Internet brands, and creating an ad that conveys information and creates desire and brand affinity can't be done by simply hiring a D-list celebrity.
So what happened in the most recent Super Bowl? The fact is that there were zero dot com ads in Ace Metrix' top 10 most effective Super Bowl ads list last year, while 6 of the 10 least effective Super Bowl ads were from internet companies: two from Salesforce.com, one from Homeaway.com, one from Living Social, one from GoDaddy.com, and that aforementioned misfire from Groupon.
Not only did these companies spend millions on Super Bowl media, they also wasted significant dollars on hiring celebrities that did nothing to move their message or their brand forward, including Timothy Hutton for Groupon, Joan Rivers for GoDaddy and Will.i.am for Salesforce.com.
The year before was a little better. The 60-second Google Parisian Love ad was the 4th most effective Super Bowl in 2010, achieving an Ace Score of 596, while the Cars.com Timothy Richman ad was the 6th most effective ad of Super Bowl 2010 (with an Ace Score of 584). But those spots were anomalies.
