The great, the unusual and the gross – Super Bowl XLVII had it all:
The game.
The brothers.
The reunion.
The blackout.
The kiss.
The Clydesdales.
And farmers.
Even though the Super Bowl is one big party, it also serves as one big marketing lesson that’s NOTHING like those dreadful college lectures of yore. The broadcast of Super Bowl XLVII became the third most watched television event of all time and is known for its entertaining commercials from appealing to appalling.
We’ve compiled a list of facts surrounding all things Super Bowl , including a few takeaways that have inspired us.
FACT: The Food and Beverage industry owned the largest percentage (35.56%) of Super Bowl air time.
The industry owned 16 commercials, 11 of which were shown during the first half of the game. Of these, Budweiser alone aired three commercials, the most commercials of any single brand.
FACT: Dodge Ram Trucks are no longer Dodge Ram Trucks. And haven’t been since 2011.
We don’t know how many other consumers are aware of this fact, but 100% of the DMA’ers were clueless that the former Dodge Ram is now just a Ram. The purpose of the separation is to let Ram trucks own the tough and durable image while the rest of Dodge vehicles move forward with a sporty vibe. Even though this won’t affect the consumer much, we applaud Dodge and Ram for differentiating their brand identities.
FACT: The Richards Group was the agency behind the Ram Trucks Farmer Commercial.
It’s important to identify the creators of any successful marketing concept and celebrate their wins, especially when they are able to capture emotions as the God Made a Farmer ad accomplished so well. We are especially proud to learn that the brains behind this masterpiece come from a fellow Texas creative firm. From their brilliant commissioning of National Geographic’s William Albert Allen and Kurt Markus on photography, the masterful Paul Harvey’s delivery and certainly their tribute to the American Farmer, our hats go off to you, The Richards Group.
FACT: Oreo slam dunked real-time connections.
Real-time social media updates are taking center stage while pre-scheduled updates are being shoved out the door. When the New Orleans power outage created a black out, Oreo saw this as an opportunity to dunk in the dark. So, with a command center team made up of internal and external employees, the cookie brand made a “Super Bowl slam dunk” with this Facebook post that garnered nearly 20,000 likes.
Mobile devices dominate social scenes allowing users to make social media updates and browse the web. In fact, 25% of Mobile web users are mobile-only! If your website hasn’t been optimized for mobile devices (including tablets), we’d like to offer you a free marketing consultation to discuss the best options for your 2013 mobile strategy.
With 100 million Super Bowl viewers, most channels don’t even bother trying to keep up. Animal Planet went a different route and found a way to capitalize on both the bowl game and capture the audiences who don’t care as much about football with adorable puppies, giving them 9 million views on Sunday and the heaviest web traffic of the year.
FACT: Sometimes what makes us uncomfortable is exactly what we need.
Go Daddy’s ad was the most controversial and had the highest “negative perception” rating BUT it was a total success for GoDaddy in regards to sales. The CMO at GoDaddy wasn’t necessarily trying to please the 50 percent of women that are watching the Super Bowl and she knew that. Clearly she hit the mark on her audience – whoever they are. Just because the commercial left most of us squirming uncomfortably in our chairs doesn’t mean that the CMO missed the mark or that she doesn’t understand her audience. She understands that she can’t necessarily please everyone…
Fact: The most-tweeted hashtag from a Super Bowl commercial was Budweiser’s #Clydesdales.
We’ve already realized the power real-time conversations hold for brands during the Super Bowl, so what a better way to encourage people to get the conversation going than including a hashtag AND engaging question on your commercial? Tweeters filled the hashtag with name ideas for the foal, whose name has now been selected: Hope.
Fact: Twitter was mentioned in 50% of Super Bowl Commercials, while Facebook only took 8% of the mentions.
Brands have figured out that when it comes to real-time conversations and consumer engagement, Twitter is exactly where they want to be. Remember when many people thought Twitter was going to be a huge FAIL? It’s apparent that more conversations are taking place on the increasingly popular, real-time social network.
Fact: Oprah’s Midas Touch continues!
Never underestimate the power of social media. @Oprah loaned her voice and her power of influence on behalf of the @Jeep “Whole Again” Super Bowl half time commercial reaching 16,414,387 Twitter followers with 14 humble words.
The Super Bowl “experience” has grown to epic proportions due to the explosion of two-way interaction complimenting the traditional, one-way marketing cornerstones – television ads.
By tweeting, posting or pinning during the game, were you an “active” spectator this year? Let us know your favorite moments and takeaways from Super Bowl XLVII in a comment below or on our Facebook timeline!
With all the facts, we can’t help but wonder what if?What if there was a super bowl ad that raised awareness of food that is grown and highlighted the benefits of fresh versus processed food? Taco Bell recently published that they purchase and sell 586 million pounds of fresh tomatoes, lettuce, onions and cilantro a year in defense of their attack on FRESH that went wrong.
Fact: By our calculations, if the produce industry collected a HALF A PENNY marketing assessment on Taco Bell’s annual fresh produce shipments alone, we would have close to $3 million, just short of what it takes to play with the big boys.
With this level of commitment and budget, our industry could easily share the stage with the deep-pockets. And tell our stories even better than Dodge, er Ram Trucks, did.