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Who will win the Super Bowl? The Kansas City Chiefs? The San Francisco 49ers?
Will any of the 40+ brands (yes, at least 40) advertising during the show win? What about halftime player Usher? Or Taylor Swift? OK, that last one is a no-brainer.
But who will be the big winner?
These brands are making big bets (and investments) on it.
But what does this mean for the rest of marketers? Is the Super Bowl commercial just a spectator sport that devolves into a chat about what a waste of money it was? That should not be.
CMI's chief strategy advisor Robert Rose comments. Watch this video or read on to find out his thoughts.
Big marketing extravaganza
The Super Bowl has become almost more of a marketing conference than a championship for the National Football League. Sunday's game is the culmination of a week of events and exhibitions with sponsorships, marketing and content-based experiences.
The week started on Monday with Super Bowl Opening Night hosted by Gatorade. The Super Bowl Soulful Celebration presented by CBS took place on Wednesday. Each day also included meet and greets, merchandise events and physical experiences like competing against virtual versions of NFL players. A better nickname for the extravaganza would be FootballCon.
But on screen, aside from the game itself, most eyes will be focused on the big bets made by the 40+ brands during commercial breaks. The average 30-second ad costs $7 million. That's more than $230,000 per second of airtime, and that doesn't include the costs of bringing these big, creative ideas to life.
What does this mean, beyond the stares and scathing reviews, for marketers who aren't attending the Super Bowl? For mere mortals working with annual marketing budgets, that often equates to just a few seconds of Super Bowl time.
It raises two questions for marketers, particularly in the B2B space, to think about.
Where is creativity and innovation?
Where are the big stakes in B2B? I ask because most B2B marketers seem to have stopped making them.
Even for the biggest B2C brands, $7 million for 30 seconds of airtime is still a big bet. From budget to creative risk, the Super Bowl is one of the last places where big, creative marketing still thrives. If these campaigns survive Monday morning's snappy analysis, many will be creatively anchored for brands for the rest of the year.
But in the last few years I have noticed that the B2B sector is starting to falter again. What are the BIG, game-changing creative risks? When was the last time you saw something with the same creative impact in B2B as a Super Bowl commercial?
Where is The Epic Split, the ad in which Van Damme's Jean-Claude demonstrated the precision of Volvo trucks by performing the split between two vehicles? (The commercial even has its own Wikipedia page.)
Where is the end-of-software campaign from nearly 25 years ago, when Salesforce threw a shot across the bow at Siebel, Oracle and other installed software vendors? They even staged an anti-software protest outside Siebel's conference.
Where is the next “inbound marketing,” HubSpot’s disruptive content marketing initiative?
All B2B marketing exists in a monotonous world of data-driven averages. Incremental creative improvements in SEO, organic LinkedIn posts, search advertising, weekly blog posts, and quarterly research white papers provide easy, average efficiency.
Yes, marketers use podcasts and videos, but where are they available that aren't interview shows about customers' activities? Yes, thought leadership exists, but when does it answer the unasked question and not the frequently asked question?
You've been so focused on what your personas aspire to that you've forgotten to ask what might excite them.
What about the trip?
The second part of this reflection requires some homework this weekend.
How many of the brand commercials don't combine their 30-second earned revenue with a dedicated media experience where viewers can log in, participate, engage, or otherwise continue the journey? How many have a URL, QR code, or something else that invites the audience to continue the journey?
Or maybe it's easier to just pay attention to the brands that continue the journey.
This analysis leads to the second question: How well do you connect all of your brand’s media experiences?
Is your owned media connected to your blog, resource center, webinar hub, thought leadership event, customer service event, etc.? How can you combine all your databases of email addresses and first-party data to get real insight into the journey you may be taking your audience on?
The Super Bowl reminds us that it's still possible to make big bets in marketing. Let us also remind you that your company can just as easily lose by boosting its price in an average, incremental, and least expensive way.
I recently attended a meeting where the VP of Marketing asked if the team could realize 70-80% of this amazing innovative idea at a lower cost by having the AI generate content. The answer is probably yes. But what a way to ultimately create more average content.
To do this, I have to paraphrase one of my heroes, Captain James T. Kirk from Star Trek:
“[They] are right – when they point out the enormous potential for danger… But I have to point out that the opportunities, the potential for knowledge and further development are just as great. Risk. Risk is our business. That's what this spaceship is all about. That’s why we’re on board.”
They don’t have the budget that Super Bowl advertisers do. But you also have many groundbreaking and creative ideas. It's time to break out of B2Boring. Feel free to take a few risks.
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
Create your very own Auto Publish News/Blog Site and Earn Passive Income in Just 4 Easy Steps
