The Super Bowl is one of those events that bring this nation together under a common interest – Football. And every year there is hype over the commercials that will be played during the game. Not too many years ago it would be all the talk on radio stations about which companies are buying $5 million spots, keeping us wonder who will have the best (by best I mean funniest) commercials.
In recent years, companies who are investing millions of dollars in a one time TV commercial are looking to stretch that investment a little more. Companies have lately been releasing their TV spots early to help drive the buzz around their campaign. It doesn’t help in keeping the surprise when the commercials air, but it pushes awareness and allows the campaign to get more views in the week before. This could be the fail safe in the event of an unlucky football fan going to get another beer during the break.
When it comes to online marketing, a campaign should follow a few key guidelines:
1) Get the message and brand across to the user. Keep in mind most people surfing the web aren’t looking to spend a lot of time in one place. example: The Snickers teaser ad is the simplest, and what I think to be, the most curious type of viral campaign coming to the Super Bowl. This ad follows the ‘daring, funny, what-the-heck-is-going-on’ type of brand equity that Snickers has been doing for the past few years, as well as giving the end card beauty shot of the product and logo lockup.
2) Create relevant content. Nobody likes being interrupted, the concept should relate to what the user is engaged in and what they might be interested in. example: Chevy partnered with the Transformers movie to ride the movie buzz wave. The first Transformers movie created a lot of interest around the Chevy Camaro, and why not use that same philosophy around the newest Transformers release.
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3) Create an action. An engaging online advertisement is useless without driving the user to the next step in learning about the product or purchasing the product. example: Motorola plans to advertise the new Motorola Xoom tablet during the Super Bowl, and to drive buzz they have released teaser ads. This type of online campaign is focused on driving the curiosity of potential customers. The action that most users take after seeing a teaser ad online is to search for the product and find out more.