It’s Super Bowl time, and once again there is as much anticipation about the game’s ads as there is about the game itself. I wanted to use my first post on the Daily Fix to discuss the ad we ran during last year’s game featuring Kevin Federline and his “Life Comes at You Fast” moment.
I’m always interested to see how companies capitalize on public interest in what is still advertising’s biggest stage. It appears that most advertisers are sticking with the traditional approach of saving their spot, or at least its punch line for the game itself, as opposed to sharing it with the public early.
But is that really the best way to maximize the $2.7 million investment this year’s advertisers are making?
Is that the best way to engage customers?
Last year, some industry purists were aghast when we at Nationwide Insurance decided to release our Super Bowl spot online a week before the game. There was even some debate among our own advertising team about whether this was “spoiling the surprise” and watering down the ad’s game-time impact. Others on our team saw it as a golden opportunity to build a buzz and connect more closely with our customers …. old and new.
In the end, our decision to share the ad early generated more than just media value for Nationwide. Featured in thousands of news stories and blogs posts … most of which happened before kick-off …. the ad was crowned by Nielsen BuzzMetrics as the blogosphere’s hottest Super Bowl advertising topic. What’s more, when posted on nationwide.com, the ad attracted more than 600,000 visitors to our company’s web site, including about half a million who had never visited before!
That was enough to convince our company’s leadership (who are more interested in selling insurance than winning ad industry style points) that the substantial investment we made in the game was well spent. It’s also worth noting that our strategy didn’t prevent the spot from making several prominent “best of” lists and continues to be the source of substantial buzz a year later.
This experience has made me a true believer in the power social media. In fact, the early buzz we built by making the ad available to social media outlets became a catalyst for overwhelming interest from traditional media.
It will be interesting to see if this year’s advertisers stick with the traditional approach or try to take advantage of the opportunity to share the ad early. I’ll be the first to admit that one strategy does not fit all advertisers.
So, as we approach this year’s game, who’s doing a good job of leveraging their Super Bowl investment to generate buzz and engage their customers? One thing is for sure …. we’ll all be watching.
Steven thanks for sharing this mini case-study for last year’s K-Fed ad, which I have to admit was one of my favorites. And I also remember that all the ad blogs especially were talking about it before the SB.
But here’s my question, how did the buzz generated from this ad translate to the company’s bottom-line?
Steven,
While I rarely pay much attention to ads of any type I do remember the K-Fed ad. If the take home message is to remember the ad, it worked.
Without watching here on this post, I remember K-Fed doing a music video and then being jolted back into reality. I couldn’t have told you what the ad was for just that it was the “life comes at you fast” line and that was surely insurance, which at some point if I thought about it for half a second I would remember that’s a Nationwide campaign.
But what actually struck me about the ad was that K-Fed had enough sense of humor to do the ad.
I suppose he’s had the last laugh though, *insert Britney joke here*.
But as I said, I don’t pay much attention to commercials. To me, they’re the white noise in the background. So with that said, as Mack pointed out, how did it work for you when it came to the bottom line?
So, $2.7m is a lot of money and this doesn’t include creative and production of a commercial. This is in some SME companies the entire marketing budget including salaries. Also, realizing the Superbowl has a predominantly US but global viewing audience, I bet many large advertisers wrestle with the ROI of such an ad.
Others have asked the same question and I’ll frame it in a similar fashion. Steven, you can bring a lot of perspective as a company with a large marketing budget – I am hoping you can share the ROI and business case for this investment (proposed vs actual) and did this campaign make its ROI goals in relation to other potential investments?
How did you prove/capture cause and effect?
I travel extensively and can say without question the commercial EVERYONE was talking about for last year’s Superbowl was Kevin Federline flipping burgers. I am not in the industry and cannot speak to whether ROI goals were met, but when else has Nationwide had this much attention? The commercial’s early release only revved up the buzz. Brilliant, edgy, smart . . . people are still talking about it.
Steven,
Good inaugural post. Thanks for the behind the scene details into Nationwide’s success.
I would challenge though that if other companies followed suit (releasing early), it wouldn’t be nearly as effective.
I just blogged about it in more detail, but basically I think that the kicker wasn’t so much about the early release itself as it was about the exclusivity of being the only one.
Other companies need to figure out their own ways to stand out.
David