From the public’s point of view, spending $4,000,000 on a thirty second Super Bowl Ad makes little to no sense, however, this is not always the case from a marketing stand point. The aspect that sets major sports finals such as the Super Bowl a part from other advertising alternatives is that it has continued to see growth and expansion over the past decade almost regardless of what teams are playing. To me that seemed quite odd that no matter the match up, the Super Bowl has always taken positive steps forward in growth. As stated in a recent Wired.com blog posting, this is very appealing to those who advertise during the Super Bowl because the audience they reach gets bigger and bigger each year and therefore you can spread the cost over more and more people (firms that advertised during the 2012 Super Bowl paid between $0.03 to $0.04 per viewer). Undoubtedly the greatest victor from their decision to advertise during the Super Bowl is GoDaddy.com. In 2005, GoDaddy’s market share was 16% and only one week after the game, their market share was 25% and in 2011 they had $1.1 billion in sales and over 50% market share. A key aspect of their commercials is that they are always memorable for one thing or another (usually their racy/ borderline inappropriate content). On the other hand, there have also been firms who have spent the money to have Super Bowl Ad’s and no longer exist today such as pets.com and lifeminders.com. For some companies this is an all or nothing strategy and, for most, the current financial risk is outweighed by the potential future benefit. I genuinely enjoy the Super Bowl commercials and I think it will become increasingly important for firms to become more and more original such that they stand out among the other 60 plus advertisements shown during the game and maximize their return on investment.

Initial reaction to Research in Motion changing their name from the current to Blackberry was not well received by traders as their stock dropped 12.01% to $13.78 a share. This dramatic decrease has mainly been attributed to the fact that by changing their name to “Blackberry” it appears as if RIM is putting all its eggs in the Blackberry 10 operating system basket making it a potentially volatile move if the system fails. It is important to remember that although RIM is mainly known for the Blackberry phone, it is not the single function of their business which also adds to investors’ concern from the name change. From a marketing standpoint, this rebranding of the company may be a smart long run move. Not only have they started with renaming the company, but Blackberry has the opportunity to take away valuable market share from Apple and other competitors by strategically implementing the marketing mix ―specifically price, product, and place.  As highlighted in a Yahoo Finance interview with former Apple CEO John Sculley, the BB 10z phone will retail in the US for $199 with a contract making it a major competitor for firms like Apple whose iPhone product can cost up to $800 with a contract. This gives Blackberry a real shot at taking back some of the precious market share they have lost over the past few years.  Additionally, an issue that has just recently been resolved in Canada is that Blackberry had still not set in stone service providers for their BB 10q phone which is scheduled to be released in March. Clearly if you can’t find distributors for the product there is no way to deliever it and this is something that Blackberry had to address. I do believe that Blackberry has the potential to rebound with the proper marketing mix, but the rebound is also very contingent on the BB10 operating system being a success.

– Sean Bell