Mrs. Tebow can't act and the no-pants trend on the Superbowl tonight

I thought that everyone seemed to be playing it a little safe in Superbowl Ad-land this year. I found most of the ads to be rather forgettable, but here are my thoughts on the rest.

The Tebow Spot:
Like I said, Mrs. Tebow doesn't have a future in Hollywood. That being said, overall that was a lot of hype for something so lame. And the production of the whole thing...little too much Apple and E-Harmony in there. It seemed to rely very heavily on the URL call to action at the end. However, no search terms about that spot made it into the Google search trends or Bing xRank, which means that either everyone remembered that URL and went straight there, or the spot was pretty ineffective, relative to other spots (more about those below).



The Beer Advertising Monopoly:
Anheuser-Busch is the ONLY beer advertiser in the Superbowl? And honestly have to say that I was a little disappointed in the overall beer ads. Beer ads used to literally run the Superbowl - what is up with them now? I think Budweiser is taking the horses a bit far now, and personally, of the beer ads, I only liked BudLight's T-Pain Spot:



The Car Spots (and lack there of):
I really expected more form the American car makers, but the Dodge spot was good. I found most of the spots pretty lame for Hyundai and Kia, but I think VW did a great job making a classic Superbowl spot. They took an idea so simple that everyone, from age 6 to age 90 can understand, and turned it into a spot. SlugBug. I liked it.





The Google Spot:
A first for the search engine, and it was definitely cute. Once again, points for being a very simple quick-get idea. I think most people can relate to it. But I find it interesting that this was loaded onto YouTube back in November, so obviously not made just for the Superbowl. Last-second media buy discount, or strategic move?



The Internets
Since people kept talking about social media and the Superbowl, I expected stronger calls to action driving to websites, social media, and texting in spots, but really didn't see too much. However, some naturals prevailed in search as usual. Dockers seemed to take the cake for most search terms on Google, and Bud and GoDaddy appeared to win on Bing. Most notable is that there was no mention of the Focus on the Family spot, or those Intel spots that were hell-bent on getting you to go submit a moment to their microsite. That means if there is a load of traffic, it is coming from direct entry of the URL, or it just isn't popular enough to get on those trends lists. Once all the buzz around spots happens over the next few days, I think we'll have some more info to report on.

Overall trend = No Pants
I couldn't really figure out why there were so many spots with guys not wearing pants? Dockers, Coke and Careebuilder.... Did anyone else find it funny that Careerbuilder.com's "Casual Friday" was played back-to-back with the Dockers "Men Without Pants" spot?

Funniest that I didn't talk about above: Snickers

Worst that barely deserve a mention: Sketchers and FloTV.

The Rest:
If you missed them, want a chance to see them all again, or just need some commenting material, check them out in Hulu's sweet little widget, below:

Ninja Your Way into the Super Bowl

I'm not sure that I can say he's a hometown hero now that I live in New York, but our buddy Mike Rylander (who also made an appearance on Yaybia in 2008) is co-starring Snack Time Samurai, a finalist in the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest!

Now, it's no secret that I love ninjas, but my love for Doritos Nacho Cheesier throwing stars might be greater. Mike & his crew have already snagged $25K for making it into the final six, but if they take top honors (vote here!), Doritos is gonna give them a shit ton of cash.

A Last-Ditch Effort to Continue Your Super Bowl Hangover

Today on Ypulse I babbled on about the few Super Bowl spots that were targeted younger than Men 35-54.  In short: Loved Free Doritos, warmed up to Pepsi and Coke, G was fine but not Super Bowl-worthy, and I hope to never see a SoBe lizard EVER AGAIN.

Miller High Life and its One Second of Fame

Libby's post about utilizing the Super Bowl spots beyond their simple traditional media value got me to thinking about the Miller High Life ad. You may just have missed it if you looked away to dip a chip or crack a beer during the big event, but that one-second spot was surely there.

Miller High Life took another approach to garnering extra ad values for their much buzzed one-second ad. Not only did the ad cost them less than the standard $3 million (it is reported to have cost around $100,000 for that momentary flash on screen), but the hype before and after have gained major media impressions for the brewing company. In my PR-oriented mind, that means a lot of positive attention and publicity value!

Beyond media coverage, the ad utilized their production of the commercial to create the "Ads that Didn't Make the Cut." You can see the ads either on the company's satellite page for the ads, or at YouTube (see video below).



More advertising exposure gained by Miller High Life, but not at the cost of $3 million per spot like Budweiser spent on some (in my opinion) fairly disappointing ads.

Side note: My favorite commercials were the Doritos snow globe and Cars.com ads. Yours?

More on the Ad Bowl XLIII

When NBC's $3MM price tag for Super Bowl spots was first announced last winter, I posted some thoughts on why a spot in the big game was still a good value for some brands, especially when they used online tools like YouTube to maximize the exposure they got from their ads.  

With T-4 hours until the big game, I've already seen some big advertisers taking advantage of buzz on Twitter:

Sobe has been tweeting as Lee the Lizard since January 21st and is specifically promoting their 3D Super Bowl spot. Currently he has 454 followers.

The E-Trade baby has also been tweeting for a few weeks, mostly about Super Bowl hype.  E-Trade baby has 318 followers.

Both these brands are making sure they have a promotional presence on Twitter, which is great, but has definitely been done before.  Doing something totally new:  H&R Block.  

H&R Block was an early adopter of Twitter and has been tweeting for over a year.  They have over 1400 followers and using Twitter to give away copies of TaxCut Premium through the month of January.  But rather than use their existing branded H&R Block Twitter account to talk up their spot, the brand is taking a decidedly more creative route.

The premise of H&R Block's Super Bowl spot is that Death comes to his accountant, Murray, to complain that H&R Block's Second Look found mistakes that Murray had made.  Without giving too much away, I'll just say that the spot ends in a cliffhanger, so viewers will be interested to see the rest of the story.  Murray has been tweeting @TaxGuyMurray for the last few days, setting up his character.  When the spot airs, Murray's story will continue online for 38 days (the time period mentioned in the spot).

This idea is great because it extends the momentum surrounding the creative executions at the Super Bowl.  It's the first time I've seen a creative idea--not a long-term brand spokesperson or PR rep--live on through Twitter, where followers can interact with him and even influence the way the story unfolds.  H&R Block gets the way people want to use social media.  They don't want brands screaming about how great they are in their feed every day--they want value, whether it's in the form of promotion or entertainment.  I'm excited to see where this goes, and how all the brands on Twitter try to maximize their Super Bowl exposure.

Go follow Murray and see what happens...and look for his spot in the second quarter!

The ADbowl

My thesis advisor, Professor John Eighmey, delighted us this morning on WCCO with his thoughts about Superbowl advertising. He told the hosts, Elanor and Suzie (love the Minnesotan accent "He knows a thing or two about advertising..."), that his favorite commercial last year was Doritos' spot where a large mouse ironically tackles a man eating a bag of Doritos who had initially set a trap for the mouse.



Last year, my ultimate favorite had to be Tide's talking stain on an interview spot. So simple, so funny.



But, more importantly, I want to posit a question to all of those in Yaybia!land: What is your favorite Superbowl ad of all time?

Now, I know asking this question to advertising enthusiasts is like asking what your favorite movie or song is, but I'm just curious to see what we come up with. We'll no doubt be ripping apart the ads that debut on Sunday, but I am more interested in the ones that have stuck with you since they first premiered.

On the radio show, John Eighmey talks about Apple's 1984 ad, which is without a doubt some fantastic work, however, since I was -3 years old at the time, I didn't get to experience this at the culturally relevant time (otherwise it would probably be my favorite.) He also brought up how Mean Joe Green (which was actually done by Coke, not Pepsi) also brought the audience a piece of "cultural truth" that they could identify with.





But one of my favorites of all time happened in the 2002 Superbowl (XXXVI), and it was one by Budweiser. Now, Bud Light has had a lot of success with funny commercials during the Superbowl (though I will say I was a bit disappointed last year,) but the Satin Sheets spot is still one of my favorites.



It's a bit slapstick, but I clearly remember sitting on my couch with my dad in his recliner as he was wheezing/laughing so hard that he started tearing up to this ad. (My dad doesn't normally laugh that easily.) Perhaps it was just the fondness of that memory that makes the ad stick out in my mind, but doesn't that show one of the greatest parts of advertising? (How it becomes part of the great family gathering/fond memories.)

So... lay it on me. Let's share together in the Christmas of Advertising-land that is the Superbowl. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE SUPERBOWL SPOT?

PETA saves $3mil, still gets a lot out of the superbowl

Riding in the car this morning, we heard the radio announcer mention that NBC will not allow PETA's new ad to run on the superbowl. My roommate asked me "why they would submit an ad if they knew it was going to get banned? Don't they know enough to be able to tell?" Well, same reason they do it every time, great PR, sex sells, and you save $3million, but still get a ridiculous amount of PR impressions without paying as cent.

This isn't the first time that PETA has done this, but checking out their new site you can see just how many times they have been "Too Hot For TV." In fact, on YouTube, you even need to be "of age" to view the video. Score 1 point for PETA.



With 31,000 views on YouTube in 1 day, and many major news announcements, I'd say they've done a good job. Sex sells, and people LOVE banned content.


This year (as it has been for the past few years) everyone is talking about how digital plays into Superbowl spots. Well, it will be very interesting to see how well a banned Superbowl spot does online vs. one that ran. Expect Yaybia to investigate post-Superbowl and post a follow up.

In the meantime, lets do an "over-under." Do you think: A) PETA will get more online views than any Superbowl spot that ran, or do you think B) The ones that run will do better. Leave a guess and a reason in your comment!

$3 Million for a Super Bowl Spot: A Super Value?

The announcement that NBC will start Super Bowl :30 spots at $3 million was all over the ad world today. Let's think about what advertisers are getting for that $3 million...

• In 2008, 97.4 million people tuned in at some point to watch the Super Bowl.

• Assuming the recession continues, consumers are going to be looking for cheap entertainment options. Televised NFL games fit this perfectly. Next year's numbers should be even bigger.

• Those kind of numbers make the Super Bowl one of the last remaining "mass media" TV events. Brands with diverse, wide-ranging targets, like Coca-Cola, Fed Ex, and Anheuser-Busch, should jump at the chance to hit that kind of cross-section of America. With a low estimate of about 50% of Super Bowl viewers falling within the targets for these dominant brands, that's about $60 CPM. A little on the high side, but definitely competitive.

• And what else does the brand get for their $3 million? For brands that do the Super Bowl right--brands that create funny or novel or charming :30 stories--YouTube hits, Monday morning watercooler discussions, and Top 10 lists across the Internet and USA Today. True, the online stats for last year's commercials aren't mind-blowing--one version of Pepsi's Justin Timberlake ad has a modest 2.4 million YouTube hits--but that doesn't include replays on the Pepsi site.

The added value of Super Bowl ads is what comes after the big game. If marketers get more interactive and more integrated and use the Super Bowl to launch microsites, or if they create a hilarious ad that get passed around the Internet, they're getting at least their $3 million worth of exposure. So right on, NBC, for analyzing the trends and making the most of this epic opportunity.