The new Netflix Canada commercial is by far the most humorous commercial I have ever seen. Why? Because it is relatable as me, like most Canadian movie lovers have watched a sports film where a coach has given a motivational speech (Any Given Sunday speech by Al Pacino is the speech that I immediately think of).

Take a look at the commercial HERE.

Now, when I tried to figure out why this commercial was so effective on me I realized I was exactly who the commercial was targeting. I have been in a hockey dressing room when a coach has said a motivational speech many times before, just like in the commercial. I along with many Canadians who have played hockey and been in that dressing room (or Canadians who at least understand the hockey culture) were the perfect target market for the commercial to focus on. Netflix did a great job in realizing this and succeeded in making a funny commercial that many people could relate to.

Would this commercial have been as effective in other countries? Probably not. Likely many countries wouldn’t have understood the movie reference the coach was talking about and the location of the hockey dressing room wouldn’t have struck home with viewers in many other countries.

Well done Netflix! Your commercial was effective and I am happy to be a proud Netflix user after watching the commercial.

After reading Tamara Gaffney’s blog “Marketers Score Touchdowns on Social Media” it shows how much exposure companies can get during the Superbowl. The increase in social media attention was substantial for the companies that chose to advertise, but is it worth the extremely high cost of 4 million dollars for the 30 seconds of advertising time?

I began to wonder how social media translates into sales? The saying “any publicity is good publicity” is one thing, but, is spending 4 million dollars on a short ad that increases social media attention and traffic for the brand going to translate into increased sales?

The graph below shows that social media traffic can indeed have an impact on sales, referrals, increased profit margins and more!

A Superbowl advertisement mixed with social media attention actually worked on me this Superbowl (keep in mind I am a cheap consumer who normally is not overly  persuaded by ads).

The advertisement campaign that worked on me was from the company SodaStream.  The Superbowl commercial originally released by SodaStream had a mention of both Coke and Pepsi, which caused the advertisement to be banned from television. This forced the company to make a revised commercial. The ban boosted the exposure and traffic across social media outlets. Then, the revised ad lured me in because there was a recognizable famous person in it (and attractive one at that in Scarlett Johansson) while the banning had already caught my attention on Twitter. Both of these factors combined was enough for me to Google the company and visit their website to see what the product was all about. Luckily for SodaStream I happen to love soda water so immediately when I visited the company’s site the product appealed to me (was this lucky? or did SodaStream figure the demographics of the individuals watching the Superbowl would likely enjoy carbonated beverages?).

Since the Superbowl I have already placed an online order for this product. I have justified to myself that it will save me money in the long run, as I am a frequent club soda purchaser. Yes, I was a victim to this advertisement campaign but it was not only the TV ad, it was a combination of the ad and the social media traffic from the ban. These two streams which simultaneously caught my attention were the key factors in me purchasing the product – without both of them I would not be receiving a SodaStream in the mail in 5-10 business days.