The Super Bowl and It's Crazy Adverts

In case you missed it, recently the Super Bowl [XLVII] happened. This is a sporting event that I have a great interest in. Not, however, for the American Football. I once tried to watch it about 3 years ago, but really struggled. I managed until The Who had finished their half-time set and went to bed.

No, I can’t wait until the morning after, when all the amazing SuperBowl adverts get uploaded to the internet. Companies intent on making a statement advertise during the event. Heck, the sport often pauses just for TV Spot breaks. For a budding marketeer like myself, I always make a point to try and watch all the noteworthy adverts. This year was no exception and provided some very interesting trends.

The first is something America is very good at. Patriotism. There are many examples of this in 2013, such as the Dodge RAM pickup truck advert about religious farmers. But, the best (or worst) example this year was the Jeep advert. So “U.S.A.”, it’s no wonder that a great deal of American’s don’t know the wider world. Here we have dramatic music, American cars that are made in America, a voice over from Oprah Winfrey and a celebration of Jeep actually sponsoring the US troops and placing commemorative badges on the ve-hicles! It seems that if you want to sell in America, make it in America. Even the Korean Kia Sorento is now “Made in the US”.

Not going the Patriotic route? Find it too, well, predictable? Well, it would seem, the other trend was to be wacky. A bit out there. VW tried to recapture the public like their previous years attempts with a man speaking like a laid back Bob Marley (a not-so-subtle hint back to the days of Flower Power VW Beetles) but ultimately missed the mark a little. Website hosting service GoDaddy wheeled out both Patriotism (the first famous lady racing driver, Danica Patrick, who is American) and Wacky (a stereotyped geek, kissing a leggy blonde model). But far from the perfect marriage, it was a bit sick.

Other noteworthy weirdness was Fiat suggesting the electric 500 is good for sex, Stevie Wonder promoting Budweiser and Axe (or Lynx as we know it in the UK) running a promotion to literally send a competition winner into space. While we’re on a role, how about Mercedes-Benz trying too hard to be hip. The advert for the new CLA car features a young man, but the soundtrack is the Rolling Stones. Then Usher appears. Talk about not-cool Uncle talking about how many Friends he has on Facebook....

All the weirdness, is of course, very deliberate. It causes people to talk about the brand. So they hope. But there were a couple of spots that were genuinely funny. The M&M advert where they parody Meatloaf’s I Would Do Anything For Love was particularly smart, and Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) being self aware to promote milk while there is an apocalypse showed a certain self awareness.


We were also treated to PSY doing a version of Gangnam style.....but about....Pistachio nuts. No really. It has to be seen to be believed.

But lastly, the overarching theme was Social Media. Every single ad had to have an official #Hashtag. They were literally everywhere. Once a nice way of monitoring if your advert was a success of not, now very much de rigueur. More importantly, the hashtags used were universally odd. For instance, Audi's wasn't #Audi or #AudiSuperBowl but #Bravery. yes, it may get people talking on the internet, but is it on message for the brand?

However, despite all the gigantic sums of money paid for the advertisement slots, Oreo stole the show. Not only was their advert funny and clever, but their marketing team pulled an allnighter. During the game, the stadium suffered from a power-outage for about an hour. Oreo tweeted a pic, and they got more Tweets, Mentions and Retweets than anyone else. Well played Oreo.

Until next year, #SuperBowlAdvertHashTagOurBrandIsCool.

Why Car Adverts Are Always The Best

OK, I'll admit it. I've got a bit of a problem. I am quite literally obssessed with cars. Good, that's over and done with.

Moving on, as a result, one of the best bits of watching TV as a youngster was eagerly anticipating which car would be advertised during each ad break. But, casting aside my fondness for anything with 4 wheels, I have always thought that cars of one of the paradigms for TV advertising. Fortunately, Car Magazine have compiled this amazing playlist featuring what they claim are the best car adverts from the past 50 years. I have to say, I spent perhaps too long watching these, but if nothing else it acts as a barometer of how advertising has evolved and changed over the years. Check out the link below for the full playlist and see embedded in this post a couple of my favourites.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL23FFB58A3375BFA8&feature=view_all

Dodging The Bullet

Classy

I was reading an article the other day about the failure of Blackberry. It was suggesting that they focussed too much on the weakness of their devices, instead of backing the advantages. In other words, they were playing catch up instead of pioneering. This in turn reminded me of an episode of Mad Men, whereby Donald Draper and his cronies were forced to re-invent the direction of a lucrative cigarette advertising deal, due to pressure from health groups publishing the fact that smoking can lead to cancer.


What they did, was simply highlight an advantage to smoking. The new Lucky Strike slogan was to be "It's toasted". Instead of trying to push the lifestyle or stating that smoking is healthy, they simply focussed on a different strength of the product. Now, take that approach and apply it to every day products. It is everywhere.

"The king of such a marketing tactic, however, are the golden arches"

When in Greggs the other day, the brown paper bags they put a pasty in proudly boasts that their Steak Bakes only have "prime cuts of beef". This is great news, something to shout about and gives off the image of a higher quality product. Of course, it is a mass produced pastry good, that costs under 10p to produce at most with all the nutritional value of, well, a Greggs pasty. But they have averted your attention away from such facts.

Lettice, must be good for me then

The king of such a marketing tactic, however, are the golden arches. McDonalds is always trying to tell us how "Fresh" their coffee is (despite being full of sugar) or how they sell bags of carrot sticks (that no one buys). The best ploy however is their British Beef campaign. The TV advert features innocent children (awww, so cute) playing around a farm in the countryside (full of green, green grass and fresh air) with the slogan something along the lines of "100% British Beef in our burgers". Well, great, well done McDonalds, by playing on a healthy environment with those who we cherish most, they come across all earthly. It may be British Beef, but that does not mean that a Big Mac is healthy for your children or that the meat is any good. I just meens they are playing on that little bit of jingoism we all have inside us. They even decorate their lorries with the slogan (which is probably just a lorry full of salt) and even the bit of paper on your tray as you carry your calorie filled McFlurry across the restaurant states it to reinforce how caring and sharing they are. Yeh, right.


This may read like a rant about Mcdonalds, but really it is genius and every company that employs similar schemes are the ones that succeed. Those that don't, flounder. Simple really, but with this in mind, it is genuinely surprising how blatant such campaigns are once you realise the workings behind it. Keep your eyes peeled next time you visit the supermarket...