by Adam Hartung | Feb 5, 2013 | Current Affairs, Food and Drink, Innovation, Leadership, Sports, Television
Reading reviews of Super Bowl ads I was struck by two observations:
- The reviewers got the value of most ads backwards
- They missed the most important ad of all – on Twitter
Super Bowl ads cost $1M+ to make. Then they cost $2M+ to air. So it is an expensive proposition. This isn't fine art, like a Picasso, with a long shelf life to create a rate of return. These ads need to pay off fast. They need to build the brand with existing and/or new customers to drive sales and make back that money now.
So let's start with one of the best reviewed ads – Chrysler's "God Made a Farmer". Reviewers liked the home-spun approach of using a dead conservative radio commentator voicing over pictures of farmers in pick-ups. Unfortunately, from a rate of return perspective my bet is this ad will end up near the very bottom.
- Firstly, the 50 year trend is to urbanization. In 1900 9 out of 10 Americans had something to do with agriculture. Now it is fewer than 1 in 20. Trucks are used for lots of things, but farming makes up a small percentage. It has been a full generation since most 2nd generation Americans had anything to do with a farm. Showing people using a product in ways that almost nobody uses it, and with a message most of your target market doesn't even recognize, leaves most people confused rather than ready to buy.
- Secondly, first generation Americans are changing the demographics of America quickly. First generation Americans (can I say immigrant?) proved large enough, and powerful enough, to play a spoiler role in Mitt Romney's run for the Presidency. To them, farming in America has no history, appeal or meaning to their lives.
- Thirdly, no one under the age of 35 has any idea who Paul Harvey is. Perhaps Chrysler could have used Bill O'Reilly and achieved its message mission. But as it was, there were two of us +50 people who spent 5 minutes trying to tell the group watching the game at my home who Paul Harvey even was – and why he was being quoted.
A 24 year old boy watching the game with me in suburban Chicago listened to my explanation about Paul Harvey and farming. He drives a Ford F-250 4×4 pick-up. After I finished he looked me square in the eyes and said "Swing, and a miss." And that's what I'd say to Chrysler. Whoever made this ad had more money than market research and common sense.
Simultaneously, reviewers hated GoDaddy.com's "Perfect Match, Bar Rafieli's Big Kiss." This portrayed a very stereotypical engineer enjoying a long kiss with a pretty girl – referring to how the company's products well serve client needs. Reviewers found the ad in bad taste. My bet is this ad will have immediate payback for GoDaddy.com
Have you ever heard of the monstrously successful situation comedy "The Big Bang Theory?" At just about any time you can find this in reruns on at least one, if not more than one, cable channel. The show is so successful that to pull people viewers to its Monday night schedule CBS actually chose to rerun "Big Bang" episodes amidst new episodes of its other programs in January. The show thrives on the tension of male technical professionals seeking to solve the age old question of how a man can appeal to desirable ladies. Politically correct or not, the show is successful because it is a timeless message. Most boys want to be liked by girls.
Today the world of people who have technical, or quasi-technical jobs, is HUGE. GoDaddy's target audience of people buying, and servicing, web domains just happens to be mostly male under-40 men with technical or quasi-technical backgrounds. This little, tasteless demonstration may have upset the high ethics of ad execs (or has "Mad Men" unraveled that myth?) but to its target group this ad was pure gold. And same for GoDaddy.com.
But most importantly, none of these ads will have the payback of 9 words a marketer tweeted when the lights went out at the game. Because it had blown a huge wad of money on a traditional game ad the Oreo brand folks at Mondelez were watching the game with their media agency 360i. Thinking quickly the creatives came up with an idea, and the brand guys approved it – so out went the tweet from Oreo Cookies "No problem. You can still dunk in the dark."
"Booya" as my young friends say. 10,000 retweets and an entire Monday news cycle devoted to the quick thinking folks who posted this tweet. ROI? Given that the incremental cost was zero, pretty darn high. If I was investing, I'd take the tweet over the video. The equivalent of a kick return for a TD.
The world has changed. We now live in a 24×7, real-time, always-on world. We no longer wait for the weekly magazine for analysis, or the daily newspaper for information. Or even the 11:00 television daily recap. We pick up alerts on our mobile devices constantly. Receive highlights from friends on Facebook and Twitter. We want our information NOW. And those who connect to this new way of living for providing us information are not only accepted, but admired by those thriving on the social networks.
This year's Super Bowl social media postings were triple last year's; over 30million. This is the world of immediate feedback. Immediate discussion. And the place were ads need to be immediate as well. Those who understand this, and connect to it, will succeed. Others, who spend too much to make and then distribute ads on traditional media, will not. Just as newspaper ads have lost of their relevance – TV ads are destined for the same conclusion.
The good news is that Mondelez and its Oreos team was ready, and willing, to take advantage. Where were most of the other advertisers? Audi, VW and P&G's Tide also jumped in. But of all those millions spent on once-run ads, these major corporate advertisers – and their extremely highly paid ad agencies – were absent. When the easy money was to be made, they simply weren't there. Off drinking beer and watching the game when they should have been working!
Today we learned Twitter is buying Bluefin to make its information on who is tweeting, about what, in real time even better. This will be helpful for any smart advertiser. And not just the multi-billion dollar giants. The good news is anyone, anywhere in any size company can play in this real-time, on-line social media world. You don't have to be huge, or rich.
Where were you when the lights went out? Were you taking advantage of what we may later call a "once in a lifetime" opportunity?
Where will you be the next time? Are you ready to invest in the new world of social media advertising? Or are you stuck spending too much to come in too late?
by Adam Hartung | Mar 7, 2011 | Books, Current Affairs, Innovation, Leadership, Openness
Why do some businesses (or products) seem to launch onto the scene with incredible success? According to a new book, “Enchantment” releasing March 8, 2011 (available on Amazon.com at about 50% off the list price), it is the ability to go beyond normal marketing, PR and other business practices in a way that enchants customers. Author Guy Kawasaki says that being likable, trustworthy and prepared allows you to overcome natural resistance to change and move people to accept, adopt – and even become supporters of your solution.
The book is tailor-made for entrepreneurs. Especially those in high-tech, who are looking for rapid adoption of new platforms. So when Guy sent me a copy and asked for my review I asked him for a 1-on-1 interview where I could focus on how the vast majority of people, who work away in large, less than enchanting, organizations, could gain value from reading his latest effort. I wanted him to answer “how am I supposed to be enchanting when dullness reigns in my environment?”
Here’s his finput from our meeting, and his reasons to buy and read Enchantment:
Guy’s first recommendation – “enchant your boss.” There’s a chapter in the book, but he focused on what to do if your boss is a real dullard. Firstly, don’t ever forget to make the boss’s priority your priority, because without that you won’t be effective. The more you can convince your boss the 2 of you are on the same wavelength, the more he’ll be likely to give you space. And space is what you want/need in order to start to identify the next perfomance curve. Then, if you have some space, you can start to demonstrate how new solutions could work. Use your aligned priorities to help you reframe your boss’s opinion about the future, and always ask for forgiveness if you’re found reaching a bit too far.
Secondly, enchant those who work for you. Give them a MAP. (M) is for Mastery of a new skill or technology. Give your employees permission and encouragement to master new areas that will help them grow – and put them in a position to teach you! (A) is for Autonomy. In other words, give them the space discussed above. (P) is for Purpose. Help people to see their work as having more value than just money. Add purpose to their results so they can feel great. With a MAP they can succeed, and you can too.
Thirdly, enchant your peers by working hard to be likable. Guy offers a chapter in which he deconstructs likability, and provides a series of tactics to make you more likable. This isn’t manipulation (although it may sound like it), but rather a guidebook of what to do to help your true self be more likable. With peers, the #1 objective is to be trustworthy! Show them that you can help expand the pie, so there is more success for everyone, rather than being the kind of person always lining up to get his piece first!
When you find yourself disappointed in your work, or employer, Guy recommends we take from his book the idea that you seek out a dream for what your work group, or employer, can be. Don’t accept that today is the best case, and instead promote the notion that tomorrow can always be better, more fun, more fulfilling. He believes that if you say you’re going to do something that seems impossible, and you undertake it with enchanting techniques, your behavior will become infectious. Behave like an enchanter and you will create other enchanters in the organization. (If this sounds a bit Pied Piper-ish I guess it does take some faith to follow Guy’s recommendations.)
I asked him how a Chief Enchantment Officer could help Microsoft (readers of this blog know I’ve long been a distractor of the strategy and CEO at Microsoft). Guy said he felt Micrsoft could become VERY enchanting if the company would:
- Focus on making Micrsooft more likable and trustworthy. Old behaviors were in the past. Going forward, if leadership applied itself Microsoft could implement the things in his book and drive up the company’s likability and trustworthiness amongst constituents – including customers, developers, suppliers and investors.
- Rethink the definition of a “product” to make offerings more enchanting. In Guy’s view, Apple would never say a product is good enough based upon its specifications or functionality. An iPad has to go beyond those things to offer something much more. Too many companies (not just, or even specifically, Microsoft he was clear to point out) launch “ugly” products – without realizing they are ugly! With a bit different direction, different thinking, about how to define a product they could be more enchanting, and more successful. (When I compare the iPhone or iPad to the xBox I start to clearly see the difference in product description to which Guy refers. Guy agreed with me that Kinect is a very enchanting product. Unfortunately it appears to me like Microsoft still doesn’t realize the value of this in its xBox efforts.)
- Train the organization on the importance of, value of, and ability to be enchanting. Most companies are clueless about the notion, as people work hard delivering solutions with too much of an “engineering mentality”. Apple has trained its organization so the people think about how to make products, services and solutions enchanting, and therefore non-enchanting things are unacceptable. Raise the bar for making sure solutions are likable, trustworthy and prepared for what the customer will want/need. Not merely functional. Build that into the behavioral lock-in and Guy believes any organization cannot miss success!
I told Guy that often I’m frequently pushed to believe that a company is “beyond the pale;” unable to do better, or to be better. Simply incapable fo ever being “enchanting.” Guy is convinced this is balderdash – if you want to change. He talked about Audi, which suffered horribly from problems with unintended acceleration a couple of decades ago. Audi changed itself, and now is doing quite well (according to Guy) while Toyota is suffering. It’s easy for an organization to slip into dis-enchanting behavior over time if it starts cost-cutting and obsessing about optimizing its past. But any company can become enchanting again. “Hey, look at how Apple slipped, then came back, and you can see how enchantment is possible for any company.”
I don’t know that Enchantment will solve all your business problems, but for $14 (and free shipping on Amazon.com) it’s full of ideas about how you can move a company to better performance. And surely make it a better, more compelling place to work!
Guy Kawasaki became famous as a Macintosh Evangelist for Apple back in the 1980s. His passion for creating technology products that help people’s lives, and work, improve, has been compelling for 2 decades. His blog is entitled “How to Change the World,” demonstrating how high Guy sets his sites. Guy also created and remains active in Alltop.com, a compendium of blog listings on important topics, where ThePhoenixPrinciple.com is part of the Innovation section.
