Many
of the usual suspects spent money for the Super Bowl ads –
Ford and Pepsi being two such companies. When thinking of
industries where one cannot easily track the return on
advertising spend, beverages and automobiles are two that
certainly come to mind. There is a significant online lead
generation business built around the auto industry, one
where dealers receive leads from various levels of middle
men. These dealers can track the conversion of their leads
and generally enough information exists for there to be
performance on a traffic group level. This is certainly not
the case with television ads, and even more so with ads
promoting a new car. The buzz worthiness of the new car
should help increase clicks and conversions on auto lead
generation sites, especially as they tailor their creative
to showcase the new Ford.
Similar to years’ past, Pepsi spent heavily on
the Super Bowl. Unlike the automobile industry, there isn’t
an online soda lead generation business nor is one likely to
pop up any time soon. Companies like Pepsi have no money
allocated to direct marketing, so it makes sense that they
would be among the largest advertisers in the largest run of
network opportunities. Like a growing majority of companies,
Pepsi did have a web strategy. Theirs involved teaming with
Apple’s iTunes to give away 200 million songs. What may have
hurt this incredible promotion is context confusion. Several
Pepsi commercials focused on Pepsi / Diet Pepsi while others
focused on the promotion. In a sense, there were three
brands being pushed without much delineation. Additional
confusion came from another prominent advertiser, Napster.
The focus on Napster’s campaign was entirely on downplaying
the value of iTunes and the iPod player. Their devaluing of
the prize could not have helped Pepsi as it attempted to
generate buzz.
https://www.lynxtrack.com/signup.php
Each
year, there is always one company that puts on the memorable
commercial. Similarly, there is always that company where
viewers scratch their head and wonder not only what they do
but why they are advertising during the Super Bow. This
year, both honors belonged to GoDaddy.com. Domain
registration is not an easy product to advertise. Domain
registration with a brand such as GoDaddy.com is an even
tougher proposition. Credit should go to GoDaddy.com for
finding an original commercial and one that maximized their
exposure, no pun intended. Unfortunately though, it is most
likely the case that the commercial itself will be
remembered but the brand and the product most likely will
not. It is however still remarkable though that a company
with no tangible good would decide to risk the 40,000 domain
name registrations that they will have to earn in order to
break even.
Almost as surprising as GoDaddy’s decision to
advertise and what they advertised was how well Ameriquest,
the half-time sponsor and a Top 10 boring brand name
candidate, transformed an otherwise dull industry into
entertaining ad spots. Among all the industries advertising
online, mortgage might hold the record for greatest
saturation and reach. Between the brandless spam, the widely
promoted arbitrage sites run by the likes of Azoogle and
Adteractive, to the Orbitz of web page ads, LowerMyBills.com,
mortgage ads have the online world covered. How those behind
the Ameriquest ads came up with a fresh take on an
incredibly overexposed industry is amazing. (One can see
them on their web site.) In contrast to these commercials is
the cute but ultimately not fulfilling CareerBuilder.com
spots featuring a man working with monkeys, a metaphor no
doubt to how many feel in their current jobs. Unlike
Ameriquest, the CareerBuilder.com spots did not stir any
real interest from their many spots.
Yet another clever spot came courtesy of
McDonalds. Realizing that people could only tolerate so many
commercials about value meals and new burgers, they took a
gamble. Their primary spot promoted a French fry shaped like
Abraham Lincoln, tying in the web site dedicated to this
promotion, lincolnfry.com. In an intriguing strategic move,
McDonalds no doubt helped cover some of the costs from the
spots by agreeing to have the actual star of the
commercials, the fry, auctioned on Yahoo Auctions versus
eBay. Like McDonalds, a lavish commercial from Volvo also
featured a URL unrelated to their product but intended to
drive interest better than would be the case with a company
domain. Their "Boldly Go" spot featured an unlikely celebrity
tie in, Sir Richard Branson, something done also by Pepsi
and FedEx.
Overall, this year’s Super
Bowl ads suggest that the internet has matured. Offline,
traditional companies relied more on the internet to help
continue their messaging. Those promoting a URL were no
longer dot question marks, and the dot com companies that
did spend online were ones with equity based real revenues
and a sustainable business. Based on what was shown, the
internet world can continue to look forward to more
companies exploring and ultimately becoming comfortable with
their online strategy. Those in our space will continue to
benefit from the awareness generated and the increasing
number of users being drawn to promotions and one off sites.
Long live the Super Bowl, and long live Run of Network
Advertising!
Jay Weintraub
