Like most people, I LOVE the sport of rating the Super Bowl ads. It’s most fun in a group. Sort of a real-time focus group. And there were some wonderful spots last night. But let’s face it – even a highly entertaining ad that splits my side might not have the kind of impact that moves a marketing needle. How would you measure effectiveness of your Super Bowl ad?
Memorability of the Ad? Memorability of the Brand? (they’re very different, aren’t they?) For example, the Betty White football tackle was one of my favorites. But I had to really think hard to remember it was for Snickers. I mistakenly remembered it as a Doritos ad.
My favorite “case of the missing brand” is actually the annual Elf Yourself from JibJab. And who’s the sponsor? (most people guess one of three competitors – Staples, Office Depot or OfficeMax. It’s the latter.) What was the most memorable brand this year? I think it had to be Doritos (or was it Tostidos? 
because there were so many…and mostly really good!
Conversion to Online Hits? GoDaddy and HomeAway played this card very hard. GoDaddy reported huge traffic and sales surge; their best in 6 years of Superbowl ads. I suppose if you want to build your brand identity around tank tops and shorts, ok. It hasn’t hurt Hooters, but it actually turns me away as a potential customer. Then, there’s HomeAway. With leadership from Mike Butler, CMO (of T-Mobile, CapitalOne and Kellogg) they’ve reported a 500% traffic surge today. I have to admit I cracked up over the mini-movie segments on their site. But for both of these companies they’ll need to impact their annual sales for the year by 10-15% or more to pay the bills. Will they? At least they’re able to put visitors in a position to buy with the online focus…
Special kudos to HomeAway who I just noticed is even buying Google Adwords to further leverage their investment
Super Bowl Commercial
See why hotels are no vacation.
The Griswold’s are back! Watch Now
homeaway.com/griswold_mini-movie
Clarity of Brand Promise? Easy to measure with the right research, there were a couple of spots that did this well. The benchmark has to be the Google ad. Using their product, they told a complete story. A touching one at that! Even the Etrade baby spot with the jealous girlfriend did a reasonable job of laying out its value proposition.
And perhaps the least appealing ad – from Bud Select 55 – clearly told the story, but probably angered viewers for its lack of cleverness. Is that a backfire? Or will buyers consider the product because of how well they understand what it offers?
Positive Ad Buzz? According to Mullen’s and Radian6 BrandBowl 2010 who measured the traffic and sentiments of Twitter traffic, Google is #1 at one point, Doritos as #2, Snickers #3 and Focus on the Family #4 (surprise! That got NO VOTES from the pros). I like this measurement because it requires a voter to have mentioned the brand and then the Radeon6 tool also scored the sentiment. By the way, on this tally, GoDaddy is #9 with 1/1oth the Tweets of the Google ad. And the measurement continues (which is why my visual to the right may be different from my reporting).
And finally, if you want a REAL ad professional’s opinion, be sure to see AdvertisingAge’s Bob Garfield in his annual review (you will see, we don’t agree on everything!)
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