Winners and Losers in the Super Bowl Ad Game
Playoff Contenders With a Facebook Fail
Careerbuilder.com
The "12 Days of Christmas" of hating your job commercial was entertaining, and you can’t miss the URL that brings you to their website. The landing page is much less inviting than Monster, but quickly perks up with an attempt at Facebook integration. Finally, some social media! However, Facebook connect offers to a) bring Facebook friends onto Careerbuilder, and b) let Careerbuilder post stories to your Facebook profile. People may not wish either of those on anyone in his or her network.
Cars.com
The "David Abernathy Lifetime of Confidence" TV spot was engaging, even gripping, and holds your attention. Again, you can’t miss the URL, and the landing page is clear and uncluttered, with a small but obvious banner leading users to their Super Bowl landing page. But the scene in the commercial where Cars.com is seen on a phone doesn’t let you know if there is a true mobile application, and their attempt at social media fell short. With 100 million people watching the game, they can’t be happy that less than 300 joined David Abernathy’s Facebook page (Figure 2). The best wall comment? "What exactly made you confident in so many areas of your life, yet not in the area of car buying?"
Figure 2. Cars.com gave social media a try, with a David Abernathy Facebook page. But overall, their attempt fell short—only 300 people joined the network as of 24 hours after the game.
All Offense, No Defense
Doritos
Were the commercials entertaining and munchie-inducing? Yes, sir. But the call to action was the somewhat long and difficult to remember—"snackstrongproductions.com," with the worst part being that the URL redirects to Doritos.com! Why not just use Doritos.com!?!? Once you get there, forget it. The website looks like an over-produced blockbuster movie. We’re talking chips here, people!
Gatorade G Mission
Classic Gatorade. Peyton Manning, Tiger Woods, and other top athletes. The website?
Searching for a New Coach
Pedigree
The play-by-play: We’re off to a good start, with various zoo animals gone wild. The payoff line comes… "Maybe you should get a dog." OK, that’s kind of funny. But who is this? Then they show the Pedigree logo, with a blue ribbon. We’re still not sure who you are yet. Then another line, "The Pedigree adoption drive. Help us help dogs." And… the end. So what’s the problem here? We STILL don’t know who you are, and you ask us to help you, but don’t say how to do it! How can you NOT have a URL here? So if you manage to find your way to pedigree.com, you’ll find a decent website. This is the first company of the night with an iPhone app. But while they get props for Google keywords, they lose points for the one we saw that still had the placeholder "Ad Text" displayed (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Pedigree gets props for using Google keywords, but lose points for the one that still had the placeholder "Ad Text" displayed a day after the ad ran.
Denny’s
This experience had all the back-and-forth as the game itself. The "Thugs" spot started out serious (is that Martin Scorsese?). Then it got funny. Then it got interesting… they are giving away a free Grand Slam breakfast to everyone in America. Great! But wait, no URL for more information? Is there a catch? Well, of course it’s just Dennys.com, and the directions are clear as day. All is well in the world. That is, of course, until you enter a New York City zip code to find out there isn’t a restaurant near here. Game over.
Reviewing the Game Film
After co-writing the article Super Bowl Advertising 2.0 after the 2007 game, we had high hopes that the ads had progressed after two years of learning. Yet the arsenal of social media resources we use in the industry daily, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, online video, iPhone applications, and texting, went largely untapped.
It’s clear that with 100 million people around the world tuning in, adding something like a Twitter address that is understood by a small fraction of the audience would dilute the message. But while the Twitter audience is small, aren’t they amongst the most influential? Why wouldn’t they want to reach this group of hyper-influencers? Oh wait… they’re probably going to write a blog post on it anyway.