Old Spice Guy Is Back--Quietly

I just linked my post-Super Bowl post to a detailed report on the effectiveness of the ads themselves and their impact on social media by agency ymarketing. The social media aspect wasn't particularly clear during the game, but it appears to have been considerable. I'd encourage you to read the report for yourself.

Likewise, the return of the Old Spice Guy on the day after the Super Bowl did not generate the buzz of the first outing last summer. Still, Ad Age reports a huge number of video views. That makes sense for at least 2 reasons. First,Isaiah Mustafa is just as hunky as ever--see the most recent ad below entitled Scent Vacation. Second, the campaign has a huge following. The ad below has gotten almost 2.5 million views. If you watch it you'll also get access to the I'm Back and Phone Call videos that were part of the effort to develop Super Bowl buzz. That part seemed to have gotten lost in the Super Bowl hoo-haa, but the campaign itself seems to be flourishing.



What does all this show? The report says that ad tie ins with social media do bring visitors. Old Spice seems to say that if you have a campaign that's working with the target market, stick with it!

Farewell to Super Bowl 2011

I think most of the voting for Super Bowl ad favorites has closed now. That probably is wise; I’m not sure how many people still care. But I wanted to do a wrap-up to my pre-game post, which had a title that now seems remarkably inaccurate.

If you want a rehash, here are two good sites. Superbowl-ads.com has been doing this for a long time and has an incredible archive. Fanhouse has a nice Super Bowl page and you can compare the 2011 and 2010 winners. The Volkswagen Force ad was the winner on most of the sites I looked at. It was cute, and it had quite a bit of pre-game buzz.

Overall, I thought the ads were either bland and uninspired or technically deficient. Seems to me the fan-created ad contest has about run its course and I missed the A-B Clydesdales, but the Dog Party Ad was cute. The Eminem ad for Chrysler (an expensive 2 minutes worth) has gotten a lot of post-game buzz, and its intent was commendable. However, I watched it closely, wondering whether it was a Chrysler ad or a Detroit ad. Of the two, only Chrysler could afford to pay for it, so the answer was pretty obvious. It was, however, one of several ads that didn’t mention the sponsor until the last few seconds. Why do advertisers and agencies think it’s ok to spent $3m and not identify the source of the ad in the beginning so the viewer can connect the brand and the message? I know all the arguments about great creative to make an impact on the Super Bowl, but the basics of good advertising still apply. Finally, I thought the Groupon ad was in astonishingly bad taste. I think it was a last-minute buy, so they probably pulled something off the shelf, but if you can’t do it right, you shouldn’t do it at all.

For me the biggest disappointment was that the social media aspect I was looking for was not in evidence. I’m sure there was a lot of Tweeting going on, but in terms of obvious advertising tie-in, it just wasn’t there. What was I expecting? I don’t really know either! Is it possible that social media has a huge role in building pre-game and post-game buzz, but relatively little during the game itself. A firm called ymarketing did a report on the ads and their impact on social media that came out a couple of weeks after the game; here's the link. A similar study by PRLog says that all advertisers benefitted from social media traffic and that Motorola, Doritos, Hyundai, and Dove benefitted most. That’s interesting, because those four don’t tend to show up or at least show up high, in the best ads rankings. What does that mean??

Fast Company has an interesting take on Super Bowl ad metrics and some interesting additional coverage. Ad Age columnist Ian Schafer was also disappointed in the social media connections and has some pithy things to say about the ads themselves. The usual excellent SB coverage can be accessed on the sidebar.

So it’s clear we still have a lot to learn. Back to work!

Social Media Lines Up for Super Bowl 2011

For those of us who live our lives in the world of social media, this Super Bowl stat is astonishing: E-Trade was the only advertiser among the 2009 and 2010 Super Bowl rosters to even add a tease to its Facebook or Twitter presence at the close of the ad, according to a study by Professors Chuck Tomkovick and Rama Yelkur quoted in Ad Age. Not so this year; in that article on Monday Ad Age headlines, “From Hashtags to Newsfeeds to Online Spots, Big Game Advertisers Tap Web 2.0 to Extend Buy.” (See also the Super Bowl coverage on their sidebar.)

We all know what the marketing game is. A 30-second Super Bowl ad has hovered around $3m for the past several years. That’s a lot for even the usual suspects like Anheuser-Busch, Pepsi, and Intel. The companies go all out to “create buzz,” with increasing intensity during this, the week before the big game. They prolong it as much as possible with post-game critiques that rival that of the sports programming itself. Getting the most mileage out of those expensive TV ads by leveraging other media made sense in years past. It still does; it’s just that social media has been added to the mix.

See the video here

According to Ad Age and this good video on CNBC, there will be more ties to social media this year. Pepsi is running its usual Doritos “Crash the SuperBowl” contest. Pepsi Max has purchased a spot, after a year off for cause-related marketing and joined in the “Crash” contest. They are joined by Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and even the Anheuser Busch Clydesdales and the ETrade baby. In reporting on this year’s advertising (with a good link to past ads), MSNBC says, “It’s a risky proposition for companies. A social media campaign has the potential to make your loyal customers even bigger fans, or draw in new customers. But companies also have to be prepared for the fact that they can’t control what people will write or tweet about them, positive or negative.” With due respect to MSNBC— big DUH!!! Any brand marketer who doesn’t already know that—and know how to deal with it—isn’t ready for the big leagues!

Coors Light is using mobile to hype its advertising using a Snap Tag on its in-store packaging. They’ve been testing this technology since spring and find it ready for the big game. It’s all about a mobile phone, a special icon, text messaging—and, of course, the ability to enter a contest and win a big prize. This article gives a good overview of how it works.

On the other hand, some brands are using the event to their advantage without actually buying an ad.

Papa John’s, who advertised last year, is taking a different approach this year. It’s giving away pizzas on game day. Of course, you have to register on their Facebook page to be eligible! But if what they told CNBC holds true and they spend about half a million dollars to put pizzas into 100,000 homes, is that a better expenditure than $3m for a TV ad? You call that one! And very important, how many fans will they add to the 1,501,026 they have now?

Bing is running a National Tailgating Championship that will culminate in Dallas this week. The first prize is “the coveted Golden Grill.” Oh, yeh? Actually, the whole thing is great fun with lots of snarky commentary like a set of contest guidelines (linked to the main contest site) full of legalese that essentially says that the judges will decide on the winner. Good for Microsoft and the Bing marketers for not taking themselves too seriously!

And most of all that master of Internet buzz The Old Spice Guy. He’s back and he’s watching the buzz about it on the web. One Super Fan will receive an early copy of the ad to be debuted the day after the Super Bowl. Oh, wow! That’s so delightfully arrogant that I’m watching for it. Stay tuned!

And I’m sure I’ve missed some other interesting or creative—or not—approaches. What else should we look for on Sunday?

Ways to Engage Your Customers

I recently ran across a video that’s too good not to share. In fact, it’s so good that it got me thinking about ways in which businesses are engaging their customers. Just thinking didn’t do me much good; all I came up with was the usual suspects, from uploading photos and videos to running contests.

First I took a look at Super Bowl 2011. Not ready to hear about the Super Bowl yet? Neither am I, really, but if you are going to do a social media promotion you have to start early. What I found was a list of contests:

• Doritos is back with what appears to be the 5th year of “Crash the Super Bowl” video contest according to a good post on how these things are run.
• Pepsi concluded its not-for-profit effort from last year and is running a video contest off the same “crash” site; good leverage
• Go Daddy, famous for over-the-top ads, is running a contest this year. Wonder what kind of entries they will get??
• This one is worth including for Troy Polamalu’s hair alone, although the sweepstakes appears to be more tied to the NFL season than to the Super Bowl.

• GM is giving weekly winners tickets to the Super Bowl and one Sierra Denali pickup. Seems to me they would have gotten more brand buzz if they had reversed that, but I guess even Super Bowl tickets are cheaper than a truck, even if you are GM!

Then fast forward to today. Just as I was beginning this post I saw an article on Subway’s new Facebook based-promotion. It is described as “a new crowd-sourced entertainment program… dubbed Subway High School Heroes.” At its heart it is a contest to nominate people who have been influential in the lives of teens—a worthy endeavor—but it has entertainment elements beyond the usual contest. Check it out.

Back to my starting point. The Tipp Experience video has been achieved viral status this fall. While that’s difficult to do, if you’ll just take a minute and play (with) this video, you’ll see the heights consumer engagement can reach!