The two Super Bowl ads that GoDaddy ran this year were roundly chastised for being stupid, immature, silly and just plain dumb. Well the last laugh is on the haters because those two ads delivered GoDaddy its biggest sales day in the history of the company.
According to the company, domain registration were up 40 percent, hosting sales were up 45 percent and mobile customer jumped 35 percent.
Take that, haters!
One of GoDaddy’s ads, Perfect Match, featured supermodel Bar Refaeli sucking face with a geek. Another, YourBigIdea, highlighted would be entrepreneurs mocking the need to immediately register a domain.
The reason these ads worked is simple. They were perfectly matched to the target audience. Registering a domain and dealing with a hosting company rests, for the most part, squarely with low level IT professionals who are mostly male. Silly bathroom humor plays quite well with this audience. It’s really that simple.
There are many companies with whom one can register a domain. When the boss asks the geek to register several new domains, which registrar do you think the geek will select? The one he remembers most. And these ads are memorable. Stupid, maybe, but memorable.
When Budweiser ran its Clydesdale Super Bowl ad, viewers were asked to submit names for the featured horse. More than 60,000 suggestions were sent through Twitter, Facebook and other channels.
Submitted names included Stevie, Star, Buddy and Spirit but the winning submission was Hope.
Of the selection process, Budweiser Brand Director Lori Shembro said, “Budweiser fans suggested a lot of great names, and it was a tough decision, but we landed on Hope as the perfect name for this friendly, slightly feisty and just perfect Budweiser Clydesdale mare. Many of our fans wanted a name to reflect their optimism and spirit.”
Hope, as the clydesdale is now known, was born January 16. Anomoly created the commercial which ranked number one on this year’s USAToday Super Bowl Ad Meter.
Catch any of the Super Bowl last night? I mean the football game and not the commercials you have been anxiously waiting for all year. The Super Bowl may be the biggest time of the year for football fanatics, but believe it or not, sports fan or not, you may find yourself glued to the TV watching the latest and greatest commercials from our favorite brands.
A recent study by market research company Lab42 shows that 39% of respondents look forward to the commercials more than the football game. That’s 44% of women and 41% of men according to the study. So what makes these commercials so much more appealing than other times of the year?
The Super Bowl commercials have changed with the times to not just be disruptive advertisements but to be opportunities for companies to engage with their fans. More than ever this year, brands didn’t just spend time and money ($4 million on a 30 second commercial to be exact) on creating the commercials, but creating social and inbound marketing campaigns to engage their audiences even before airing the commercials. Here are 10 companies who got it right and did a thorough campaign all the way from incorporating social media to airing the commercial on Super Bowl Sunday.
Lincoln’s Steer the Script
To kick off their Steer the Script campaign, Jimmy Fallon tweeted to his fans asking for them to help Lincoln Motor Company with their Super Bowl commercial.
Thousands of people began to respond by using the #SteerTheScript commercial. They told him their personal stories of going on road trips, and Fallon used this information to create a Super Bowl commercial. This commercial marks the first time that any commercial sourced information for an advertisement from Twitter. Lincoln and Fallon highlight different Twitter users in the campaign and talk about the experiences they had on road trips and the opportunities customers could have with their Lincoln automobile.
Why does this work?
Marketers constantly need to create content. Instead of looking online for something to write about, consider using your social media audience as a source of your information or data. Twitter has a great ability to spread news, but not enough marketers use it to create content. Consider incorporating this tactic the next time you have to write a blog post or another form of content.
Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl
Doritos has hosted a successful contest for the Super Bowl for the last seven years in which they ask people to create a 30 second Super Bowl commercial about Doritos, and then allow their audience to vote on Facebook for their favorites. The top two commercials get air time during the Super Bowl, and there are cash prizes for the top five contestants. This year the following two commercials won the contest.
Even though Doritos has held this contest for seven years, people are still excited about it. They are engaging two different audiences by using this contest. First, there are the filmmakers who compete to potentially have a moment of fame when millions of people are watching their commercial. You cannot say that about every time a commercial plays during the year, can you? Then you have the audience who engages with the brand on social media. They are constantly coming back to the Doritos Facebook page to see if their commercial has made it to the next round. You ignite their inner competitiveness even though it isn’t actually their commercial.
Why does this work?
As a marketer, if you have a campaign that works successfully and you can use it again, definitely do it. Many annual campaigns do not get old, and your audience may look forward to it each year. Also consider how you can keep your audience engaged and constantly coming back to your page to see the latest updates. With the Super Bowl quickly approaching, Doritos knows they have to stay front and center to keep ahead of their competition, and by creating an engaging campaign like this, they keep their audience’s attention.
Pepsi’s #PepsiHalftime Show
You would think Pepsi would stop at just (ha, “just”) being the sponsor of the halftime show. Nope, that’s not enough. They decided to host a contest on top of planning for the anxiously awaited halftime show performance by Beyoncé. The contest asked viewers to submit photos of themselves in different dance poses using the hashtag #PepsiHalftime, and they could win a chance to either be shown in the countdown commercial leading up to the Super Bowl, or even a chance to be on stage with Beyoncé. The contest ended on January 19, but they continued to post footage on YouTube of her rehearsals and glittered the homepage of Pepsi with tweets of people still using the hashtag.
Why does this work?
With a rockstar like Beyoncé as the face of Pepsi’s sponsorship, you would think they wouldn’t need to add another element to the campaign. But Pepsi recognizes that their marketing needs to be focused on the people who really matter – their customers. Having an additional campaign that engages their customers on social media while making them the rockstars of the night allows Pepsi to engage with their audience and also keep them excited about the brand.
Audi’s Prom Commercial
Similar to some of the other companies, Audi used a contest to promote their commercial. But they took to YouTube instead of some of the other social media platforms. In their contest, they asked viewers to vote for their favorite ending for the commercial. They produced three different options but wanted their audience to decide what should make it to the Super Bowl.
Why does it work?
Have you ever been in a movie and wish you could have picked another ending? Maybe have the couple not end up together in the end? Audi gives its fans the chance to make that decision, even if it’s just for a 60-minute commercial. They are trying to give their audience the message that they can make decisions, whether it’s buying an exciting new Audi or simply picking the ending to a Super Bowl commercial. The final commercial has over 5 million views, and the campaign has been a huge success.
Coca Cola’s Chase
There’s nothing like a cliff hanger, right? Coca Cola did not release their full commercial early this year like many other companies but instead decided to show the beginning of it. They ask viewers to vote for who they think will win the race that’s depicted in the commercial in what they are calling the Coke Chase.
Why does this work?
Coca-Cola has a lot to compete with since their top competitor has Beyoncé on their side for the halftime show. But if you take a look at Coca-Cola’s Facebook page, it is full of back stories of all the characters in the commercial, making it more exciting to decide who to vote for. Normally when there is voting that goes on, that’s the entirety of the campaign, but Coke takes it an extra step to give its viewers more excitement and engage with them in the meantime. One of the posts on Facebook has up to 18,000 likes and others have between 40-60 comments. Their audience is clearly engaged beyond just watching the commercial.
GoDaddy’s Big Idea Campaign
In past years, GoDaddy has had campaigns that make you stop and think, “What does this have to do with GoDaddy?” or even “What does GoDaddy even do?” But this year, they’ve taken a different approach. Their Super Bowl commercial is only a small part of a much larger campaign.
The commercial brings you to a website that lets you search for your next Big Idea.
Then you can search for an available URL and find out instantly if it is available. If it isn’t available, they give you a list of other options to consider.
Why does this work?
Unlike other years, GoDaddy’s campaign specifically relates to their business model. The website makes it easy for them to find out what idea they can turn into a business. Additionally, their social media profiles are constantly using the hashtag #YourBigIdea to encourage promotion of the campaign but also others to discuss their ideas with each other using the hashtag.
Budweiser’s Rescue Dog Campaign
Some of the most popular alcohol commercials include the Super Bowl Budweiser commercials. They have been funny, they have used sex appeal, but this year they are going to tug on your heart strings a bit (while still being funny). Budweiser has partnered with Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation in their latest Super Bowl commercial.
What the commercial doesn’t tell you is that Budweiser is having a marketing campaign that goes far beyond the Super Bowl commercial. For every like they get on their Facebook page, they will donate $1 to Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation. The commercial even plugs adopting rescue dogs.
Why does this work?
Instead of doing just another Super Bowl commercial that focuses on drinking beer, Budweiser is incorporating a non-profit into the campaign that will really touch people’s hearts. Additionally, they have a social media campaign component that will get their audience engaged with the campaign and even checking back to see the progress of how much will be donated to the organization.
Nabisco’s Put the Party in Play
Nabisco recognized that a commercial alone on the Super Bowl would not cut it this year. So instead they decided to produce a ton of content that would be used to help people celebrate the Super Bowl. They published a website called Put the Party in Play that provides recipes, various games to play, and dos and don’t of hosting a party.
Why does this work?
There are tons of different options people can choose on game day. But by creating content about party planning tips and other fun things to do when hosting a party, Nabisco is helping to make them top of mind for people buying cookies and other treats. Nabisco is truly following the rules of inbound marketing and not just depending on a commercial to boost their status in the minds of their audience but creating content to really help out their audience and draw them into the campaign.
Pizza Hut’s HUT HUT HUT
To stand out this year, Pizza Hut decided to gather user-generated content for their Super Bowl commercial. So this year the entire 30-second commercial is a compilation of videos that viewers sent in to Pizza Hut. The only ask from Pizza Hut was that people pretend like they are the quarterbacks in a football game saying “hut,” which they are claiming is actually a shout-out to Pizza Hut.
Why does this work?
Pizza Hut took an out of the box approach by asking viewers to submit content for their commercial instead of creating it themselves. The theme of the commecials is extremely catchy and easy for their audience to create. It is a win-win for Pizza Hut because not only will their commercial garner success from viewers seeing regular people like themselves on TV, but it was top of mind when the quarterbacks in the Super Bowl also said “hut.”
Toyota’s Wish Granted
Toyota’s commercial may seem like a typical ad from the outside – releasing just a commercial ahead of the Super Bowl, but really there was a larger Twitter campaign that went on to promote the spot. When Toyota announced their Super Bowl ad starring Kaley Cuoco, they also announced the hashtag #WishGranted.
Toyota also transformed the branding on their Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube pages as a way to kick off the new brand marketing campaign.
They have over 12 million views with 11.8 million views coming in before the Super Bowl.
Why does this work?
Hiring Kaley Cuoco for the Toyota campaign definitely helps, but it isn’t the reason marketers should look toward Toyota as an example. Toyota is a great example of a successful marketing brand, shaping their entire social media platform to be a part of the campaign. Wherever you go whether it is the website or other social media platforms, you know about Toyota’s campaign and it truly shows especially through their successful YouTube views.
What other Super Bowl campaigns did you see that made effective use of social media?
This article was written by Rachel Sprung, Brand & Buzz Coordinator at Hubspot.
Whispr Group looked at all publicly available Tweets about the Super Bowl posted from January 25, 2012 – February 3, 2013 to determine the main drivers of Twitter traffic across several categories including: The Super Bowl, Advertisements, Brands, Commercials, and Hashtags. Here are the highlights.
• Although GoDaddy by far had the most conversations on Twitter (+43% more than the next runner up Budweiser) the brand, by far, received the lowest positive sentiment (14%).
• Calvin Klein was able to pull in nearly as many mentions as Taco Bell and Budweiser, and with only half the ad spend.
• Tide’s Super Bowl commercial pulled ahead with the highest positive sentiment (86%) amongst over 41 brands evaluated.
• Calvin Klein scored the best bang for their buck in terms of dollars spent per brand mention on Twitter, averaging $24 per tweet. Chrysler performed the worst, averaging $179 per tweet.
• Oreo scored the best bang for their buck in terms of dollars spent per new Twitter follower gained, averaging $495 per new Twitter follower. Chrysler performed the worst, averaging over $14K per new follower.
• Despite Pepsi’s half-time show sponsorship, Coca-Cola was able to score more buzz on Twitter (84,787 tweets).
• Six of the top ten brands had an average spend of $7.6M for 60 seconds of air time.
• Taco Bell scored high across all categories including volume of tweets, sentiment, new followers scored and social ROI.
Ram Truck’s beautiful So God Made A Farmer ad as voiced by the late Paul Harvey topped the HGulu AdZone ranking of most liked ads. Rounding out the top five were Budweiser Brotherhood, Taco Bell Viva Young, VW Get in Get Happy and, WTF, Universal Pictures Fast and Furious 6.
Fan votes were tallied for all Super Bowl XLVII commercials on Hulu’s AdZone and the results reflect all votes that were in as of 8:00pm PT / 11:00pm ET Sunday, Feb. 3. For the first time ever fans watched, voted, shared, tweeted and “liked” their favorite ads on iOS and Android supported mobile devices.
OVERALL MOST LIKED ADS
Top ranked by fan votes.
1. Ram Trucks: Farmer
2. Budweiser: Brotherhood
3. Taco Bell: Viva Young
4. Volkswagen: Get In. Get Happy.
5. Universal Pictures: “Fast & Furious 6” Game Day Trailer
6. Jeep: America Will Be Whole Again
7. Paramount Pictures: “World War Z” Big Game Spot
8. Skechers: GOrun 2 – Man vs Cheetah Big Game Commercial
9. GoDaddy.com: Perfect Match – Bar Refaeli’s Big Kiss!
10. MilkPEP: The Rock in Morning Run
Hulu also awarded winners in additional categories including “Celebrity Cameos” to “Play That Music” to “They’ll Make You Go ‘AWWW.'”
CELEBRITY CAMEOS
Celebs Cash In: No one loves the Super Bowl more than celebrities. They popped up all over the Super Bowl in 2013.
1. M&M’s: Love Ballad
2. Samsung Mobile: The Next Big Thing
3. Toyota Rav4: Wish Granted
PLAY THAT MUSIC
Your Game Day Soundtrack: We got to hear The Flaming Lips’ new single and a goldfish sing a neo-soul version of “No Diggity.”
1. Audi: Prom
2. Mercedes-Benz: Soul
3. Hyundai: Epic Playdate
THEY’LL MAKE YOU GO “AWWW”
Ads That Warm Your Heart: From adorable animals to cute kids, these ads will make you smile, and maybe even tear up a little.
1. Coca-Cola: Cameras
2. M&M’s: Love Ballad
3. Hyundai: Epic Playdate
FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME
Football Fever: What’s a Super Bowl without ads that honor the guts and glory of the gridiron?
1. Tide: Miracle Stain
2. Hyundai: Team
3. Pizza Hut: Hut Hut Hut
CLOTHING OPTIONAL
Pretty People in Various Stages of Undress: From headless torsos to incredibly violent automatons in short skirts, a bunch of companies left us wondering, “What are these people selling? And does it really matter?”
1. M&M’s: Love Ballad
2. Axe: Lifeguard
3. Kia: Hotbots
YOUNG, WILD, AND FREE
Electric Youth: Relive your young adulthood with these ads that will keep you feeling young and carefree, from awkward laundromat pickups to gutsy high school prom moments.
Anheuser-Busch took the top spot in the 25th annual USA TODAY Super Bowl Ad Meter for its Baby Clydesdale ad. Panelists gave the ad a score of 7.76 (on a scale of 0 to 10).
In celebration of the 25th anniversary of Ad Meter, USA TODAY expanded the vote to thousands via a password-protected site. More than 7,600 panelists voted on the more than 50 ads that ran during the game.
USA TODAY created the Super Bowl Ad Meter in 1989 to gauge consumers’ opinions about TV’s most expensive commercials. Ad Meter results have long been the industry-leading tool used to measure public opinion surrounding Super Bowl ads.
We have to say we’re in complete agreement with Tim Nudd over at AdWeek whose top five Super Bowl ad picks mirror ours exactly. Now, picking the top five Super Bowl ads, of course, is pure speculation and opinion because, of course, the only thing that really matters is did the ad sell any product. And we certainly won’t know that for a while, if ever.
That minor detail aside, here are our (and Tim’s) top five Super Bowl advertising picks for 2013.
Taco Bell Viva Young
The work, which follows the usually-always-humorous strategy of old people doing young things, appeals to a broad demographic swath in that younger folks can chuckle at their own antics as actioned by the octogenarians. And older folks can vicariously relive their own youthful antics from back in the day. Created by Deutsch.
Oreo Whisper Fight/Dark Dunk
Oreo gets a spot on this list not so much for its ad, though it was very entertaining and “on brand” but for its real-time ad in reaction to the power outage during the game. Wieden + Kennedy created the ad and 360i was behind the power outage ad.
Samsung’s The Next Big Thing
The ad, which features Seth Rogan, Paul Rudd and Bob Odenkirk, is a brilliant riff on current advertising tactics with specific callouts to the over use of Psy, sending people into space ala Axe, talking babies, crowdsourcing…and even celebrity endorsement by LeBron James who makes an appearance on a Samgsung tablet. Caveat” We could like this spot simply because it’s so target to our industry. 72andSunny created.
Budweiser Clydesdales Brotherhood
In this Budweiser Clydesdale Super Bowl ad, set to the tune of Stevie Nicks’ Landslide, we witness the journey of a baby Clydesdale from birth on a farm to parade work in Chicago. The spot, created by Anomoly, celebrates the return of the Clydesldales to front and center having, for the past few years, been relegated to supporting roles.
Ram Farmer
The late Paul Harvey’s famed So God Made A Farmer speech was incorporated into the ad created by The Richards Group. The words come from a speech Harvey gave in 1978 at the National FFA Convention. The speech is moving and the images that accompany truly encapsulate the message; there are some people out there who work really hard for little money and out of love for their craft. Just brilliant work.
There were some accusations the ad is a copy of a Farms.com video but it turns out Chrysler is working with the organization to support the Future Farmers of America and the Farms.com video gives a nod to the Ram Truck ad.
Honorable Mention
We give honorable mention to the Doritos Goat 4 Sale ad purely for its over-the-top craziness and that screaming goat! And to Jeep for its message to the military delivered by Oprah.
This year’s Super Bowl will be dubbed The Year of the Kiss. Why? Well two always makes a trend, right? We had Bar Refaeli suck face with a geek in a GoDaddy commercial. And we had Will Ferrell, seemingly on his way home from basketball practice, sucking face with an Asian lady on a bus.
The spot aired in Sherman, TX; Ardmore, OK and Glendive, MT. In true clandestine form, the spot isn’t even on Old Milwaukee’s YouTube channel. A few viewers captured it on their own after, perhaps, being tipped where and when it would air.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
