SuperBowl Ads Recap - I was expecting "better"!

Tweet

 

For the past 3 years now, I grab a few beers, chips (Doritos of course!), a couple of sandwiches and watch the game for the action as much as the brand ads.

My routine is simple, I sit back and relax as I’m tweeting my comments and retweeting others and having great convos in between.

I’ve noticed though that this experience for me seems to get more and more bland every year.

Do you get the same feeling?

Not talking about the game of course … What a game!

I’m referring to the ads. Nothing really grabbed me.

I expected funny stuff from Doritos, cute and simple Polar Bear messaging from Coke, air time domination by Budweiser (…which I got), and exceptionally entertaining and creative stuff from VW ( … which I didn’t get).

Nothing really stood out … at least last year we had the VW-Darth Vader kid!

I always like to recap on how good or bad these ads did collectively, so because I subscribe to Web-Strategist,  I got these great stats and trends that if you like this stuff you'll find it interesting and intriguing!

Here are few trends from  Web-Strategist on how Social Media Channels integrated with Superbowl Ads:

Using Chicago as a middle ground, we reviewed all ads from kickoff till the game clock expired and found that trends out of 87 advertisements.

• Trend 1) Brands Heavily Invested in Promoting Traditional Websites
• Trend 2) Surprisingly, Many Did Not Promote a Call-To-Action
• Trend 3) Only a Sixth of Ads Explicitly Promoted Social Media
• Trend 4) Hashtag Marketing Emerged to Stimulate Continual Engagement
• Trend 5) Cutting Edge Marketers Teased with New Marketing Tactics, including Shazam

Above Graphic One: 2012 Superbowl Ad Analysis: Less than one-third of Ads don’t promote cross channel

 

---

Above Graphic Two: 2012 Superbowl Ad Analysis: Less than one-third of Ads don’t promote cross channel

Here's the full post!

But moving beyond the integration and focusing more on the message.

Most car commercials with the exception of perhaps "Audi's" daylight-headlights which ruined the vampire moonlight party, had little originality. I couldn't remember any other car brand because there wasn't enought message differentiation. Zero Innovation!!

I'm glad Joseph Jaffe, someone I admire and constantly read and follow had a similar take on it. 

You'd figure with a good year in advance, massive budgets and all that talent they would get the basics right!

Anyway, there's learning opportunities all around us. If you are into marketing and watched the Superbowl, like me, you probably learned a lot!