Super Bowl marketing has a real problem—too many ads and not enough campaigns
No matter how fun, commercials can’t stand on their own for very long.
JimMin
Super Bowl LVII is behind us, a gladiatorial spectacle that commanded the attention of tens of millions around the world. Last year’s football season was refreshingly unpredictable, the Eagles and Chiefs brought hordes of fans, and guac aficionados never miss the game, all of which drove tune-in.
But for advertisers, does the reach justify the cost?
The price of a Super Bowl spot versus its actual worth is a question debated annually by marketing mavens, but what if we’ve been asking the wrong question all along?
Maybe it’s time to shift our focus away from ads and back to campaigns. (And yes, there is a difference. A big difference.)
A live sporting event is arguably the last viable venue to command a captive audience, yet day-after recall scores for TV commercials remain in the single digits and recollection of any ad viewed a week prior is virtually nil.
But wait, you say, it’s not fair to judge a Super Bowl commercial against the standards of regular advertising. This is event marketing, a moment in culture, a chance to show off your creative chops. Yes, to all three, but that doesn’t change the fact that somewhere in that client organization sits a very stern CFO wanting to know, What was the ROI on that $7 million ad buy?
People don’t remember ads unless they’re part of a campaign.
Maybe you’ve given up on campaigns because so many are cluttering our cultural landscape. The emu lowered the bar, Verizon beat you into submission and now Burger King has broken your spirit. Building a long-term brand platform is a lost art, and most of the highly paid creatives and strategists who know how to architect a truly brilliant campaign no longer work at the big agencies—casualties of cost-cutting and advertising ageism.
Perhaps you’re convinced you don’t need a campaign because we live in a transient culture, social feeds are fluid and everything is ephemeral—but on reflection, you’ll realize those are actually reasons to be more recognizable every time you show up.
Campaigns save you money because they make every new ad work harder. Marketers know this, but the short lifespan of CMOs and tenuous agency tenures have conspired to make everyone desperate for one moment of fame. If I can get this one ad made, I’ll go to Cannes. Clients need an artifact of artistry as much as their agencies. If my agency pulls this off, I might get a bigger CMO role after I get axed from this one. Sales take a backseat to spectacle.
The irony is that a famous campaign gives you permission to bend, stretch and shoot for the horizon every once in a while, and what better place than the Super Bowl?
A campaign is a never-ending story, and your brand is the protagonist. So if you want your ads to stand apart, make sure your campaign holds together.
Here’s our entire industry in a sentence: If you like a campaign, you’ll eventually come to trust the brand, and if you trust the brand, you’ll buy the product, because people do business with companies they like and trust.
Which brings us back to the Big Game. Did you see your favorite brands show up in unexpected ways, reinterpreting their DNA through a wildly entertaining piece of film more exciting than the game on the gridiron? Or was it a procession of brands with an overblown sense of their own importance, marketers trying to outgun each other on celebrity endorsements, earnest empathizing and tech-enabled interaction? Ask yourself again in a week and we’ll have the answer.
If you want consumers to cuddle you in their frontal lobe, always recite this simple mantra when briefing your creative teams: Humor is sticky, charm is memorable, smug is fleeting and earnest is the on-ramp to apathy.
Speaking of apathy, here’s a warning to clients who cut corners: Running the same ad incessantly does not count as a campaign. That’s pedantic and annoying, and far too many advertisers produce too few commercials for the scale of their media buy, thinking they can pummel consumers into caring. Never forget the cornerstone to any long-term campaign is variety, keeping things fresh as your ongoing brand story unfolds.
A brand is a relationship, a commitment or, at the very start, a first kiss. That requires the trust earned by consistent behavior across a campaign, so while a single commercial may turn your head, it won’t win your heart unless it’s followed by yet another ad that reinforces that first impression. It takes two points to make a line and more than three ads to make a campaign.
So enjoy the leftovers, if not the hangover, and ask yourself tomorrow which spots were truly unforgettable. And if you remember a spot but can’t remember the brand, don’t bother telling the CFO of the company. He already knows.
