Category: Ad Analysis
Super Bowl commercials the good, the bad, the ugly.
Posted on: Friday, February 25th, 2022
I didn’t have a dog in the fight this year. But when one is born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area, opposition to the Rams, Dodgers, and the Lakers is part of one’s DNA.
Still I couldn’t help but admire the Rams defensive line that sacked Joe Burrow, the Bengals quarterback, again, again and again. Bottom line, I have to wait until next year for the 9ers.
The game aside, the commercials this year generated eye-watering amounts of money to NBC and star power that only Hollywood could deliver to the major marketing event on the planet.
Revenue for commercials for this year’s Super Bowl was about $600 million. Serious coin for a single program. But the commercials don’t just cost the airtime ($6.5 million for 30 seconds, $13 million for 60 seconds). The talent is pricey, and this year more than any other, the commercials featured high profile celebrities flogging everything from beer and potato chips to mortgage lending, electric vehicles and 5G phone service.
Everyone from Arnold and Salma Hayek promoting the new BMW EV to Ana Kendrick selling mortgages, Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd doing their potato chip thing and Scarlett Johansen and her husband demonstrating Amazon’s Alexa, to name a few.
The Rams’ team members each got $101,000 in bonus money for winning the Super Bowl, but the movie stars score much more dinero for appearing in their commercial work. So, besides the cost of the airtime ($6.5 > $13 million), celebrities typically pick up anywhere from $500,000 to $2,000,000 for promoting everything from sea shells to the metaverse to the Hard Rock cafe. Some are paid more.
For example, here are some past pay checks – Super Bowl commercial stars and the amounts they were paid, leaked from various sources: Kate Upton was paid $1 million for her appearance in a milk bath for the Game of War video game, Arnold was paid $3 million for a Bud Light Super Bowl commercial in 2014 and Brad Pitt picked up $4 million back in 2005 for a Heineken commercial.
Celebrities attract eyeballs…and get paid for it. (This year’s viewership clocked in at 101.1 million.)
https://www.thelist.com/437370/heres-how-much-celebs-get-paid-for-super-bowl-commercials/
So, with airtime, cost of talent, production costs and the director’s fees, figure $10 to $20 million depending on the length of the spot. Yet it is stunning to me that corporate marketing directors or CEOs approve these multi-million dollar budgets when the commercials position their products with harm, damage or loss in an apparent effort to be funny, not to sell.
This is a a disease, probably borne out of some Harvard MBA class that has metastasized to ad agencies and corporate marketing departments that humor sells and that humor is generated by some kind of negative, damaging or disparaging occurrence.
AMAZON
Scarlett Johansson and her husband, comic Colin Jost, “stared” in a commercial for Amazon’s Alexa, which is kind of a video butler. Now I am a Scarlett Johansson fan (who isn’t) and she and her husband go through various scenes where in there is the implied possibility that Alexa can read minds. It’s kind of silly but OK, then at the end, Alexa announces to dining table full of guests that Colin left the oysters in his car for five hours at which point everybody at the table chokes and barfs out their oysters onto their plate.
See the last scene for yourself – everyone is regurgitating oysters at the end of the commercial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0UEAr8I9G8
Really? Is this supposed to be funny? Do you think you are going to sell more Alexas cutting a commercial the last scene of which positions the product with a table full of friends regurgitating oysters?
PEPSI
There’s a Pepsi commercial staring Payton and Eli Manning the great NFL quarterback brothers, both now retired. They are about to watch the Super Bowl, they toss jabs back and forth as Eli drinks Pepsi and Payton munches on Lays potato chips. Then, famed NFL running back Jerome Bettis storms into the house in an effort to get them on a bus to the game. Payton says no so Bettis ties a tow line from bus to the house, drives off and rips the living room out of the house.
Huh?
There’s more but please tell me why you couldn’t produce a Super Bowl commercial staring Eli and Payton Manning promoting Pepsi without destroying their house?
What’s the message? Drink Pepsi, get your living room demolished?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2C6ZJEb0kg
There are others.
The Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd commercial promoting Lays potato chips ends with Seth marrying a ghoul that looks like she has been dug up from the grave. You know, something out of the walking dead.
The commercial ends with the picture of this ghastly looking female. Just the positioning that would prompt you to run to the store and grab a bag of Lays potato chips.
Not.
And the Hellmann’s mayonnaise commercial is 60 seconds of people being slammed to the floor, the last of which is Kim Kardashian’s new squeeze, Pete Davidson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_1Ordi5GjY
Like I said, it’s a disease. But, thankfully, they are not all produced this way. With a Dolly Parton introduction Miley Cyrus belts out a ballad promoting T-Mobile’s 5G network. Miley displays some really impressive vocal chops. The lyrics are weird but the girl can sing. And the maps that compare T Mobile coverage to Verizon’s are very convincing.
https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/dolly-parton-miley-cyrus-super-bowl-commercial-t-mobile-1235180320/
If I were in the market for a new pickup, the commercial for the new Chevy Silverado EV pickup would get me to the dealer for a test drive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bZYqFsU72Y
But the commercial that really scored, that got the public to REACH, was that of Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S.
The super clever commercial was 60 seconds of a QR code floating across the screen. That’s it. No audio, no “hot button” text, just the floating QR code.
The result? 20 million people copied the QR code, and went to the Coinbase site. The volume was so intense, it temporarily crashed their server. Coinbase has yet to reveal how many of those 20 Million visitors signed up for a new account.
That is what is what you call marketing success – a commercial that gets a response, a huge response, a huge reach.
So, how did they know? How did they know what to offer that would get a response?
They survey.
That’s right, Coinbase surveys both their existing customers and their prospects to find out what they need and want or consider valuable.
https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinbase/other-topics/other/coinbase-user-research
You think Amazon conducted surveys that suggested they position their brand with people getting sick at dinner, or that Hellmanns’ research revealed that seeing people get knocked to the ground would motivate more mayonnaise sales?
Surveys let you know what is in the mind of your publics (both existing customers and prospects). They open the door to more leads, more sales and more income.
How do I know?
We have been conducting surveys and increasing sales and income for clients for more than 25 years
Bruce,
I want to thank you and your team for the amazing survey On Target performed for Energy Professionals.
We have been using your survey results for our website, all of our marketing materials, our training for our sales reps and for the foundation of all our company communications. One of the results we have achieved using this information was our highest ever sales last month.
Your services are very valuable, and we will be back for more surveys.
Sincerely yours,
Jim
Jim Mathers
CEO/President
Energy Professionals, LLC.
If you want to increase your sales and income, give me a call or shot me an email.
Best,
Bruce
Bruce Wiseman
President & CEO
On Target Research
www.ontargetresearch.com
Bruce@brucewiseman.net
1-818-397-1401
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SUPER BOWL 53
Posted on: Friday, February 8th, 2019
I’m not sure how the advertisers did, but I counted 52 Super Bowl commercials Sunday. At a cost of $5.25 million for 30 seconds – more of course for the 45 sec. and one minutes spots – CBS banked a cool $382 million for an afternoon of broadcasting to the 100 million pairs of Brady-watching eyeballs on Super Bowl 53.
BURGER KING
There were a couple of the commercials that communicated with power and class. And I will share my opinion on what those were below. And I don’t care to focus on the negative here because if I get started I will turn into a carping shrew. But can someone tell me please how an ad agency can produce, and a CEO can approve spending $7+ million for 45 seconds of this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bv9LMxPkqk
Forget the flaccid content of the commercial, whose idea was it to position a Burger King hamburger with Andy Warhol?
I mean, Really?
There were two commercials that I liked a lot.
GOOGLE TRANSLATE
One was the commercial that was produced for Google translate, the online translation service Google makes available. They start by saying that 100 billion words are translated every day.
Wow.
It then shows examples of people all over the world getting in communication by the “simple” use of a smart phone and the Google translate feature.
The commercial shows how one can be in communication virtually anywhere on the planet in an instant.
Fabulous. It helps put the world into communication. Watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXfJc8up6cM
I use this feature from Google for On Target Research with growing frequency. Prospective clients, mostly from Mexico and South America find us online (ontargetresearch.com). They are seeking to have market research and surveys done in order to introduce a product or service to the U.S. market, which they view as the ultimate market place – and they are right.
Calling my Spanish rudimentary is way to kind.
I put the query into Google translate. See what prospect needs or wants and then answer them in English, have Google translate my response to Spanish, copy, paste into an email and send. The entire transaction goes this way.
But the commercial demonstrated the software’s use in many ways and in many cultures. It was well produced and got the message across wonderfully.
WASHINTON POST
It wasn’t so much the production values of the Washington Post’s commercial, it was the message.
I am not a fan of the Post’s liberal editorial policy and the slant of their journalism that seems to come from the mind of a Georgetown graduate student.
But if anyone has the right to be called the apostle of the First Amendment, it is the Washington Post.
Their iconic expose of the Watergate scandal including the illegal activities of the Nixon White House was immortalized by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in film (All the President’s Men).
And, more recently, it was Stephen Spielberg that called on Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep to tell the story of the Post’s fight (along with the New York Times) to publish the Pentagon Papers.
The Pentagon Papers “… revealed that the presidential administrations of Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, , John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson had all misled the public about the degree of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, from Truman’s decision to give military aid to France during its struggle against the communist-led Viet Minh to Johnson’s development of plans to escalate the war in Vietnam as early as 1964, even as he claimed the opposite during that year’s presidential election.”
So the Washington Post has bragging rights. But they didn’t brag. They promoted the use of journalism to tell the important stories.
I fear this mission has gone astray in recent years. But the Post’s commercial reminded viewers of what it should be. And for that, their commercial said something important and stood out.
Their message: Democracy Dies in Darkness.
It’s true. It does.
It is worth a look, or even a second look if you saw it Sunday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDjfg8YlKHc
I will spare you a long commercial here and simply say that if you are going to give your website a facelift, create a new marketing piece or produce a commercial you should spend a few bucks first and survey your public to see what they think is valuable about what it is that you sell. It will increase response and leads and ultimately sales. Which is, after all, is why most folks are in business.
“In short, and you know I am a believer, without good surveys, marketing dollars are wasted. Way more dollars wasted than are spent with you doing the surveys. Surveys are the aerodynamic engineering of any marketing plan – is that positioning? Without surveys, you can get there. But you are wasting energy/dollars along the way.
And when it comes to doing surveys, you and On Target will always be my first choice.” TW Public Relations Professional
Best,
Bruce
Bruce Wiseman
President & CEO
On Target Researcj
818-397-1401
What is a Button
Posted on: Tuesday, February 5th, 2019
One of the products of a marketing survey is a “Button.”
Kind of an odd word for something from a marketing activity. But don’t let that fool you – it’s vitally important.
A button is a point of agreement among a particular public about a product or service. A button results from a survey question and is used in marketing to get the attention of the company’s perspective buyers.
“What do you consider to be the single most important factor in selecting a dog food for your pet?” might be a question that would be asked on a survey for a pet food manufacturer.
The survey would, of course, have to be conducted on dog owners. Depending on the product, the survey might even be conducted on owners of large dogs.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Big+Dog+Love&&view=detail&mid=5C72D5B4C529FDE128DC5C72D5B4C529FDE128DC&&FORM=VDRVRV
or small ones –
Our clients often think the top answer to survey questions about their products or services is Price. This is particularly true for more expensive items – like, say electronics, legal services or a kitchen remodel. But more than 25 years conducting surveys for 100s of companies has taught me that price is rarely the most important item for customers when making a purchase. More often than not, it is often the third or fourth in terms of importance.
In our made-up survey question about dog food, the top answer would likely have been “Natural, healthy ingredients.” (I previously conducted extensive market research for an informercial about a health product for pets.)
Customers, whether buying nutritional products, clothes, financial services or a seat on the next commercial trip to Mars, are generally much more interested in the quality of the product and good service than price. And most people – not all but most – are willing to pay a little bit more for a product that has a higher standard of quality and/or better service.
Think Whole Foods or Nordstrom.
Management often thinks they know what their customers want – and often they do – but they don’t often express it in their marketing materials the way the customer thinks of it. The wording is different, which blunts the impact of the advertising.
The wording of the button is extremely important.
Surveying for a company that imports chilis into the U.S. we ask, “What might motivate you to try a new brand of chili?”
Let’s say the answer was “Spicier” but the manufacturer says, “Our chilis are hotter than the competition.” Hotter is not necessarily the same as spicier, and they miss the bullseye.
Use what the prospect says.
It has also been the case, on occasion, where client “knows better” than what the survey of their prospects reveals to be important to them. And they use something else entirely.
We did a survey for a major cell phone manufacturer out of Asia. Huge company. Not as big as Apple (no one is as big as Apple), but big. They were entering a market in a Latin American country and retained us to conduct surveys of the mobile phone using public to find out the “hot buttons” – what people really needed and wanted from their mobile phones.
One of the key buttons that was wanted by this public was longer battery life. They also wanted fewer dropped calls (the existing provider had a near monopoly and their service was poor, particularly in areas away from major urban centers).
But the manufacturer disregarded the survey results and decided to lead their advertising by promoting a new high-tech camera feature. After several months and I don’t know how much money, the Asian telecom company packed their bags and went home.
You’d think after they hired a survey company (with Spanish speaking surveyors, no less) and paid the freight for the surveys, they would use the results. Nope. Oddly, I have found this to be the case with larger corporate clients where the ultimate decision maker is far removed from the scene and has a “fixed idea” of why the public should want the product.
You have to ask the public what they want, what they consider valuable about what it is that you sell. Assuming you can deliver it, that is what you should promote.
Then you have the other extreme – a CEO who, despite his own internal surveys, hires an independent third-party survey firm to confirm his data and is willing to adjust his marketing to customer needs and wants, if need be.
Benjamin Nagengast is a twenty-first century entrepreneur.
Among other wild ventures, he created two highly successful “scream parks” – one in Dade City, Florida and another in Anderson, Indiana.
Last year Benjamin contacted On Target Research and wanted us to conduct surveys to either find new marketing buttons for his theme parks or confirm those that he had been using.
We conducted surveys of customers of both theme parks and found that the research and the buttons Benjamin had been using were exactly correct. Frankly, I have never seen a client of ours so accurately grasp his customer’s needs and wants.
Was the confirmation of these buttons valuable to Benjamin?
Here is what he had to say:
“On Target Research completed a thorough review of the overall direction of our existing marketing activities. We’ve had a lot of insight into our customer’s needs but have not formally confirmed our suspicions.
“Through surveys of our customers, On Target Research was able to confirm our marketing activities were spot on.
“To us, this was a very valuable service. Many times in my business career, I have strayed away from workable strategies because of the whim of an executive, or the hunch of an advisor. To have concrete evidence that our marketing activities fulfill our customers’ needs is extremely important and helpful.”
Thanks, Benjamin. It was our pleasure.
Best,
Bruce
When Brands Go Wrong: Tropicana failed to survey.
Posted on: Saturday, September 28th, 2013
It must have seemed like a good idea at the time. After successfully rebranding their most popular beverages with revamped packaging fonts and colors, PepsiCo took the plunge to redesign one of their biggest brands, Tropicana. Even the best brands need an update every now and then, so it must have made sense in the conference room. READ MORE