Tuesday, February 2, 2010

SocialBowl Sunday

Whether or not our favorite team made it to play in the legendary Superbowl, we are more than likely to tune into the action for the quest for the ring or tune into to some of the best commercials of the year. As a Dallas Cowboy fan, I am not so much interested with either the Saints or Colts, but I will admit I am excited about the new buzz circling around that advertisers are taking a new approach to their commercials.

Think about it.. You and at least 10 of your close friends piled on the couch around the T.V., passing the chips and dip, and popping a few beers. It's an advertiser's dream to have this many pairs of eyes tuning into the network, so a boring commercial won't make the cut. And with commercial spots soaring well over into the few million dollar range for just 30 seconds, no pennies can be wasted with mediocrity. Advertisers again are now having to think outside of the box (literally) to get audiences interacting with their brand from the T.V. to your computer or cell phone.

Audi is taking a stab with social media advertising with it's new campaign to promote an earth friendly diesel fuel. For better or worse, the people are talking, well tweeting, about the series of videos posted on YouTube known as the "Green Police." Even though this seemingly controversial name may be making quite a stir, there is still no such thing as bad publicity..people are still talking.

Well, one of the biggest companies that will be MIA for the Superbowl is Pepsi. Pepsi is completely opting out this Sunday and taking its new campaign, "Pepsi Refresh," which is leaving competitors like Coca-Cola chuckling about their decision. Coca-Cola will be using BOTH Superbowl ads to promote their Facebook page to support Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Why not take advantage of T.V.'s most popular Sunday and connecting it to technology's latest buzz? Denny's, Doritos, Unilever, and VW seem to agree with the approach as well. Unilever will be connecting with Twitter to engage audiences having them tweet about their Dove ads.

Whatever team you will be rooting for this Sunday, the winning team will be in the limelight for maybe a day or so. I don't know about you, but the next day I'm not talking about the game, I'm talking about the commercials. We will just have to wait and see which social media snap will launch the "Hail Mary" hype and ultimately lead to a W.


3 comments:

  1. This year I am definitely not watching the game for the football either! I love watching super bowl commercials but I have found in the last few years they have not been up to par in my book. I am pleased that many of the big companies like Pepsi are opting out of advertising on television and instead using a different tactic. I also heard that many companies were submitting their advertisements to the Super Bowl knowing that they would be rejected and it would create media buzz. A company called "ManCrunch", a gay dating site, submitted their commercial and was rejected but the company is now in the media spotlight. Since they were rejected on the reason" straight-up discrimination" the press have had a field day and Mancrunch is loving it. I think this was a great PR tactic because now their name is out their and they did not have to pay a dime.

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  2. I too was watching the commercials and I was a bit disappointed. Denny's free grand slam commercial was relevant to last year's, because they had the same promotion the week after last year's Super Bowl. I was also disappointed with Budweiser's Clydesdale commercial, only because it seems like every year there is a new animal featured in the commercial for the Clydesdale to compete with.

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  3. Sarah, I guess there really isn't anything that is bad publicity?.. I remember last year, there were some explicit images in the PETA Campaign that made the commercial banned from the Superbowl and everyone was still talking about them! I guess it's a great way to save money? Make a commercial that is too risque so everyone will watch it but you don't have to pay an arm and a leg to get a spot during the game!

    Mikkayla, I will have to agree as well. I saw only a few commercials I liked this year..and by few I mean one. It was the Google commercial where he was entering in search terms that related to his growing relationship in Paris (it was so cute!) Yeah, everything was just pretty mediocre though. The "Go Daddy" commercials are always the same with a girl always groping Danica Patrick, but at least the context changes..

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