“The Super Bowl is one of the most anticipated sporting events of the year … for marketers it’s almost like a study tour.”
It’s as if marketers hear multiple rounds of “ca-ching” instead of the loud cheers surrounding the field. As a Commerce student, I spend more time reading articles on their marketing strategies and the public’s reaction to them, rather than the results of the actual game!
There is an intense competition between businesses to earn the 30-second ads (or longer now) between the game, spending millions of dollars as they are encouraged by previous records of huge profits. It’s also about associating the game with their products and/or brand, to increase brand awareness. For example, companies of electronic products try to convince the viewers that big games are better watched on their big, high-definition TVs. Read more examples here.
There are new trends that follow the traditional advertising strategies.
They take “customer-interaction” approaches, such as encouraging them to create their own ads. Another approach which cannot be missed is social media. This article quotes, “It’s clear social networking … [is] now a default part of the advertising itself.”
The marketers did not miss the opportunity during an unexpected power outage during the game today. They immediately logged onto Twitter to mention the power outage and somehow associate it with their brand or products.
As Forbes quotes Tim Calkins (Kellogg School of Management), “This is an example of the new world of marketing … where brands respond real time to the environment.”
What I am amazed by are the responses of people. They actually look forward to advertisements during the game. “Super Bowl ads hardly count as interruption marketing.” I have solid evidence on this as my Facebook newsfeed is full of people’s posts on advertisements during Super Bowl, and linking YouTube videos.
“What was nice about the power outage is everybody jumped on their mobile devices when the power went out and everybody started talking about the game but moreso about the ads, which was a positive development because it gave the early advertisers an even bigger impact” – Calkins
Try searching “Super Bowl 2013 Commercial” on YouTube and you’ll find ads like this by Samsung: