Content is King? Visual is King

Visual appeal, it’s an art form and it makes a big impact. There is no branding without focusing on visual appeal, because visual appeal is a critical part of branding. For example, the colors you pick for buttons and text determine how many clicks you get and ultimately how much engagement you receive (think sign-up or purchase links). Many will say that content is key, but visual content dominates just as much if not more of the content field. All you have to do is look at Pinterest or Instagram to see that we’re a visual culture and visual matters. Don’t believe me or know where to start?

A good place to start is identifying what type of company you are and what you’re trying to project. Understanding that and having a clear vision of current and future direction will help inform your choices here. Take a look at the infographics in this article http://bit.ly/Z4mx1b. There is one midway down the page that shows arcs of brands delineated by their common colors. There are even key words that are implicated by each color, and the kinds of words that these colors evoke that you need to consider when you’re identifying what type of company you are and what you’re trying to project.

The next thing to consider is your objective, what is your goal? If it’s a deliverable, what is the desired outcome you are trying to effect? The infographic with the series of “Buy” buttons in different colors is a good indicator for matching goal and desired outcome to color choice. Additionally, another infographic detailing an experiment with color choice for a “Get started now” button is also a good resource. Then you need to consider your audience, which is what their next infographic tackles. There are certain colors that attract women and men, just men, or just women. Knowing your audience is not an option, it’s a requirement.

If these don’t convince you that visuals are important, just check out the statistics on Pinterest http://bit.ly/Z4mEtO. Pinterest is all about identifying key influencers and tapping into their likes to spread your content. Most of Pinterest activity is user-generated (from repins) as compared to brand-driven (a small percentage pertaining to what you pin to start with). There are also certain times of the day that work better for certain industries to pin at and the fact that Pinterest draws a mostly female audience to consider.

There’s also Instagram, which Facebook purchased and has started to transform to adapt it for its use (to the delight and disgust of others)http://nyr.kr/18TQLWr. Instagram seems to be on the right track with one thing if nothing else, and that’s adding in a tagging element where the person posting the image can tag everyone in the photo. There’s also a “Photos of You” the collects photos you’ve been tagged in, much like how Facebook compiles a photo section of you. Everyone likes to see themselves in a photo, relate to what’s in a photo and share what’s in a photo. Whether it’s Pinterest or Instagram, it’s important to develop a strategy for making the most of it with your brand.

So there you have, an argument for why visual is king. It’s a type of content, it’s just as if not more important than verbal content and it deserves the same type of consideration. How does your visual appeal measure up? What is your visual appeal doing for you? Become more visually appealing and see where it takes you.

PR Fail to Communicate

You’ve seen it happen before. A tragic event occurs, someone thinks they’re trying to be relevant connecting themselves to it in some way (i.e. Groupon’s Tibet commercial from a few years ago). Then there are issues you just never parody, and yet there are people out there who find humor in something no one else does and do it anyways. It comes off as insensitive self promotion. It’s untimely, it’s inappropriate and it reflects poorly. Basically, it’s what is known in today’s Twitter-verse as a #prfail. One of the worst examples ocurred in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings.

Food website Epicurious had this to say on Twitter http://bit.ly/13IzO17: “In honor of Boston and New England, may we suggest whole-grain cranberry scones!” It followed that tweet up with “Boston, our hearts are with you. Here’s a bowl of breakfast energy we could all use to start today.” These tweets hardly acknowledged what was going on in an appropriate manner. It’s kind of like when your parents tell you, “if you don’t have something nice to say don’t say anything at all.” Epicurious would have been better off playing the silence card, after all, silence is golden. Instead they didn’t, and people called them on their poor communication. Epicurious then offered up the same apology repeatedly “We truly regret that our earlier food tweets seemed insensitive. Our hearts and prayers are with the people of Boston.” Seemed insensitive, seemed insensitive? You think? That statement took no ownership of the situation and did more harm than good. Then they tried to issue a correction “Our food tweets this morning were, frankly, insensitive. Our deepest, sincere apologies.” Epicurious should’ve offered this up in the first place, instead it was too late to fix the damage that had already been done. It’s the perfect case study of “what not to do.”

Another poorly executed piece of communication is a McDonald’s ad that mocks mental illness http://usat.ly/ZexnA3. I’m sure you’ve seen those ads on TV. The ones where a single person sits with their hands crossed over their eyes holding their head in sadness. McDonald’s chose this familiar image that is associated with only one thing for their ad. Perhaps if McDonald’s had tweaked some elements or changed the background it could have changed the interpretation. However, they simply borrowed the image and used it to say “You’re not alone. Millions of people love the Big Mac.” Granted McDonald’s has now pulled this ad, but that was not smart. It’s kind of like using the universal sign for choking in an ad to communicate the person’s had too much spicy food and their throat’s on fire. Yeah, kind of like that. Situations like these aren’t funny and relating to them inappropriately doesn’t have the intended effect. It simply doesn’t sell. What it does do is create a crisis management situation that could have easily been avoided if they’d just used common sense.

The same goes for Epicurious. That whole “think before you speak/act” statement? It applies to these kind of situations. The quickest way to tank your reputation is to pull a move like these companies did here. In the case of Epicurious unless you’re someone like Red Cross tweeting about your response to these situations, or Google tweeting about how their People Finder can help, you do not have any relevancy to speak of here. Either you stay silent out of respect or you offer a simple heartfelt condolence. In the McDonald’s case, use creativity before you borrow an image. Originality is much more respected than careless borrowing. In any case, you don’t want to be the one everyone’s talking about as a #prfail.

Sponsored Content: Deceptive or Clever?

Anyone who’s on social media these days can’t help but notice the increase in sponsored and promoted content. Whether it’s sponsored stories on Facebook or promoted tweets on Twitter, there is a definitive push happening. You may notice that banner ads aren’t as prevalent as they used to be. That’s because sponsored and promoted content is the reinvention of the banner ad. The whole purpose of this type of content is to jolt you out of your familiar lull with different content. This is especially true on Twitter, where promoted tweets seem to appear out of nowhere on your feed and usually don’t relate to the rest of the content you are viewing. Facebook’s are a little more subtle because they tie them in with stories and likes from your friends. It’s kind of like the advertorial format found in magazines, half editorial/half advertisement. As such, the question arises, does that fact make sponsored stories deceptive or clever?

I guess it depends on what side you’re looking at it from but the facts remain. Perhaps the biggest pro of sponsored stories is the one that benefits marketers and PR professionals alike. A new report from Forrester Research notes that 70% of consumers trust recommendations from friends while only 10% trust advertising http://on.mash.to/Y7j6EO. Face it, that’s exactly what these sponsored stories look like. They are based on your friends’ likes but they’re being brought up because you are friends with that person. It used to be that you had to look at a friend’s profile to figure out what brands, companies, pages etc. they liked recently. Companies are taking that information and using it to promote themselves through sponsored stories that look like they are being relayed to you directly from your friends. Content from your friends appears in your newsfeed, and since this kind of content does too, and features your friends, it looks like it’s from them. However, there is that sponsored tag that sets it apart as an ad.

Each sponsored story has the word “sponsored” displayed in its time stamp. Yet advertorials do the same thing, and that doesn’t seem to make them viewed as any less deceptive because of that. Regardless of whether sponsored stories are deceptive or not, a con is that they are confusing for the viewer. Inside Facebook’s Brittany Darwell provides an example http://bit.ly/13mGa6G. Her reasoning, in a general context, is that a sponsored story could be provided by a friend as a way to get more people to join them, it could be paid for by the brand, or it could be sponsored by a third-party site as a way to get more people to check it out. The point of contention being that the word “sponsored” doesn’t tell you anything about who is truly behind its appearance. All the viewer sees is that it’s linked to one of their friends. Darwell suggests having the name of the sponsor appear when your mouse lingers on the word “sponsored” to cut down on the confusion. Perhaps that would help make it less deceptive or perhaps it would make it more deceptive. Consumers might appreciate the honesty, but it might also ruin the success that advertisers and marketers are having with sponsored stories if someone knew who really sponsored it.

Thus the appearance of sponsored stories remains controversial at best. They relate to your friends, but they don’t directly feature them always. There’s another brand, company, etc. included, but it’s from your friend. Or is it? Studies show that sponsored stories are an effective format, but the question of what type of format they are is still subject to interpretation.

Daily Deals Dilemma

Daily deals roll out like clockwork, and not just because they’re daily. At work I get emails directed at the person who came before me, and some of those are Amazon Daily Deals. Some are appealing, some are not relevant, all of them are extras. That’s because they aren’t deals for things that I need. This is inherently part of the current problem with daily deals, and it extends to more than just Amazon. Just last week Groupon fired its CEO Andrew Mason over fourth quarter earnings that didn’t meet expectations. These kinds of results are not an overnight thing, rather they’re a symptom of a much larger problem that’s produced a steady decline for some time now.

Reuters reported on a Raymond James survey that speaks to some of the problems daily deals companies have been ignoring http://bit.ly/ZqjbzB. The survey involved about 115 merchants that used Groupon services during the fall. 39 percent said they weren’t likely to run another Groupon promotion over the next couple of years, and the top reasons cited for why were high commission rate and low rate of repeat customers. 32 percent reported losing money on promotions and about 40% said Groupon was less effective for them than other types of marketing. Instead of making changes that impacted these core concerns, they glossed over them by appealing to merchants with new features and benefits. Ingrid Lunden wrote about one of these, which is Groupon Payments http://tcrn.ch/Y7jlhr. This Square/PayPal competitor feature was added to its Merchants app for Android handsets early this year. Although Androids are over 50% of all Smartphones in use, this was not the main problem Groupon needed to fix.

What daily deals sites are now struggling with is finding a new model. USA Today’s Hadley Malcolm points to what some of that might entail http://usat.ly/Y3dDuU. Offers that stand out is her first suggestion. Adding to that would be my own suggestion, which is to do that by making deals into longer range deals. How about a discount off of a series of visits or purchases, a coupon that’s good for an unlimited amount of visits in a week, or discounts on vacation experiences? My point being that if it’s encouraging repeat business people are more likely to be repeat customers to get their money’s worth. One of those visits just might turn them into long-term customers too. Her second suggestion is find other ways to make money. My suggestion on how that could be done would be delving into related services. For example, leveraging deals via social media or Constant Contact ™ for their merchant customers. No one vehicle is the surest route to a consumer after all. Her third suggestion is realizing who your customer is and this goes back to my first point. Daily deals are extras, they’re wants not needs. If they could tailor their offerings to people’s needs then they might see more business. This could be through using their own hits and misses to determine what certain people seek out the most. People might not be repeat customers of merchants but they are repeat customers of Groupon and that data could be utilized.

Although this series of events spells the demise of the current model of daily deals, it doesn’t mean they’re going extinct. Or that they have to. Instead, it’s an opportunity to revamp and revitalize their offerings, and their business, into a more profitable model. One that creates the type of results the survey shows are missing. I really hate the phrase ‘think outside of the box’ so I’m going to say that daily deals companies need to expand, strengthen and redefine what they are all about. Being open to this, listening to consumers and customers, and following through with what they learn are the best tools for the road ahead.

What Shoppers Demand of Mobile

Shopping has become a mobile affair and today’s shoppers demand a lot from mobile to meet their needs. Shoppers are looking for information, recommendations and price comparisons, but those are just the basics. As technology becomes more savvy, so do shoppers. It’s similar to car shopping really, you buy for the function but the amenities and added features are what draw you in and seal the deal. Mobile has to meet that same need today, as shoppers look for it to meet them wherever they are in whatever stage they’re at. Hence  the birth of showrooming as one of the newest trends, where shoppers engage their mobile to compare prices on the same product at different retailers. Retailers are increasingly fighting to keep shoppers in stores and engaged in immediate point of purchase endeavors. A local Oregon car dealership, Dick’s Mackenzie Ford, tells shoppers in its commercial to check online and then come to their dealership. They claim that if you make the trip, they’ll make the deal. Attempts like this to directly combat showrooming are not unusual.

Target is now taking on competitors like Amazon in offering a price match guarantee http://bit.ly/XQrbK1. Geared towards assuring shoppers that they are getting the best deal around, the process offers hope. However, utilizing it is not the most user-friendly process around. Customers must bring in a purchase with proof of current price or the original Target receipt and proof of current price to the guest services department. What’s wrong with this scenario? The last thing people want to do is wait in line and that’s exactly what they’ll be doing here. If Target’s going to combat the effects of mobile it’s also got to learn to utilize mobile. Customers are increasingly looking for added features with mobile, and turning this process into a mobile process would satisfy that urge. Just as virtual checkout has caught on, Target customers should be able to scan their purchase or receipt barcode and provide a link as proof of current price. Then the guest services team could virtually approve or deny these claims through email or through a store app. With mobile, convenience is going to win the day.

This has already been proven in a study by Latitude called Next-Gen Retail: Mobile & Beyond http://bit.ly/ZTprlD . Smartphone users ages 20-59  from the U.S. and U.K. were included in this study, with 65% of them being dual owners (also owning a tablet). The study found that 20-29 year-olds prefer smartphones to laptops for transactions. It also noted that shoppers are increasingly expecting mobile to meet them with real-time offers. Location-aware communications make it more likely they’ll visit a store’s website or physical location soon, with 1 in 5 saying they’re more likely to make a purchase or a pit-stop at the store that day. As mobile rises to meet this, more demands come into view. 79% are interested in receiving digital content delivered to their mobile while shopping, 79% also want the option to virtually try on clothes while shopping and 86% want their mobile to alert them when they are near a store that’s selling recommended or sought-after items. 80% would also be interested in a digital wallet (which would also be great for virtual coupon delivery).

The largest current demand for mobile apps is access to coupons and comparison shopping, but that’s not going to last forever. There are places where mobile and retailers are falling short of customer expectations. Those who want to control the market and become what Facebook is to social media, but within the mobile shopping realm, need to take notice. It’s not enough to deliver mobile shopping apps that offer just the basics anymore. As needs expand you have to rise to meet those needs. The ones that start now will gain and retain more customers, not to mention set the bar for others.  It’s time to get motivated and step up your game.

Snacking: Reborn and Rebranded

Americans are a culture of snackers. We just can’t resist munching on something to bridge the gaps between meals. A recent study found that Americans consume 2.35 snacks per day on average and in 2012 52% of  all eating occasions among Americans were snacking occasions http://bit.ly/YPEyv6. Some despise the word snack, and any form of it, as it usually carries unhealthy connotations. Not surprising when the same study found that 57% of survey respondents claim it’s important or very important that what they snack on is healthy, and yet chips and soda were the two most popular picks for snacks. Smart snacking brands realize this discrepancy, and are utilizing the uptick in snacking to rebrand the definition of snacks and snacking for the modern consumer.

One example is the Girl Scouts, who are now out in full force for their yearly cookie sale. Each year they run a trial cookie of some sort. This year their new cookie is the Mango Creme, a crisp vanilla wafer packed full of nutrients from dehydrated veggies and fruits http://nydn.us/XQFAYq. Nutrifusion is the magic ingredient behind this nutrition addition, which consists of nutrients from rehydrated apples, oranges, cranberries, pomegranates, limes, strawberries and shiitake mushrooms, for Vitamin D. It’s a different take on snacking and positions Mango Cremes as a healthier alternative among snack choices. A clever strategy that may sell more cookies, and definitely takes snacking to the level of more than just a snack. 

Another popular company that’s rebranding snacking is Nabisco with Wheat Thins http://nyti.ms/XzCJBn. In fact they’ve dropped the word crackers altogether. On the box, the word ‘snacks’ takes the place of the word ‘crackers’ to make it Wheat Thins Snacks, much like baked chips that go by crisps instead. Even on the nutritional panel a serving is referred to as 15 pieces, where the word ‘pieces’ replaces the word ‘crackers’. Wheat Thins are also being marketed as more than just a snack with the introduction of diverse flavors that range from spicy buffalo to zesty salsa. This is similar to the flavor diversity built into Triscuits, a comparable snack, although their serving sizes are still measured in crackers on the nutritional panel. 

There is definitely a movement amongst snack food companies to redefine what snacking is and what snacks look like for today’s consumers. The goal seems to be to get people to do a double take and reconsider what foods, and types of foods can be healthy snacks. Typically people wouldn’t think of cookies or crackers as healthy snacks. The difference with Mango Cremes and Wheat Thin Snacks is that there’s something additional involved. Whether it’s nutrition, renaming or flavor diversity, it provides justification for its acceptance as a quality snack choice. You could say it’s like placing reduced fat on the label. The reason to eat it and eat more of it becomes more of a responsible decision, rather than an unhealthy one. A smart strategy in a consumer’s world. Now more than ever it’s important to keep pace with the changing climate of opinions to remain relevant. Doing so maintains and strengthens a consumer’s relationship with your product, not doing so places it’s welfare in potential jeopardy. Branding and marketing foods is all about positioning based on added value, and this new version of snacking is full of opportunities. All you have to do is think smart and stay in the game.

American Made: An Old Standard Returns

Monday is Presidents Day, a day we celebrate the great leaders of this country. All of which are American born, much like our growing love of American-made products. Yet, it really isn’t anything new. There was a time when everything was made in America. As outsourcing has become more popular, and profitable because it’s usually cheaper, problems have arisen. Lead in toys is just one example. Add to that the recent economy and decline in jobs and you stir up a nostalgia and passion that has been forgotten. During my approximately three years in retail I got an earful, although I don’t think they realized or cared that they were talking to someone who had no say in what products we carried.  Nonetheless it proves a point, that transition and demand for American-made is once again at the forefront. Marketers and advertisers are just starting to capitalize on it.

Mark Wilson cites a recent redesign for American Airlines http://bit.ly/XkBRlQ. The eagle with talons in predator form has been replaced by a red and blue eagle crossed with a wing, situated in an upward flight position near the front of the plane. An abstract American flag, focusing on the stripes adorns the new plane tails. Focusing on the stripes keeps it from being too 4th of July and makes it more forward-thinking and forward-focused. Wal-Mart has also joined in, albeit amid worker protests and foreign bribery investigations. According to Oliver St. John, Wal-Mart recently pledged to source $50 billion of products in the U.S. over the next 10 years http://usat.ly/YgZ99t. He also cites Margarita Mendoza, founder of the Made in America Movement, a lobbying organization for small manufacturers. Mendoza notes that both 3M and Caterpillar are also making more efforts to source more in the U.S.

Like all great movements, there needs to be a PR campaign connected to this as well. In Oliver St. John’s article, people like Kyle Rancourt of American-made shoe company Rancourt & Co. worry it’s a passing fad. It’s not an unfounded fear. We’ve been through the cycle before. The difference between something becoming a fad and something sticking is in the marketing. Making a permanent change is going to involve a big push in purpose marketing, something Panera Bread, Bumble Bee Foods and Kashi (by Kellogg) know all about. Stuart Elliott defines purpose marketing as “pro-social marketing” and marketing that is ”advertising for good and conscious capitalism” and “woos consumers with information about the values, behavior and beliefs of the companies that sell the products” http://nyti.ms/VYTg6E . It’s about stirring up a more emotional and loyal connection that’s based on the practices and social consciousness of the brand.

“Made in the USA” is also a brand, and it needs a movement like this to continue to spur its growth. Customers buying more products made in the U.S. will make sure there are more products made in the U.S., but for that to happen the sentiment needs to be built. Marketers and advertisers need to be behind this and committed to it 100%. As marketers and advertisers we have a great responsibility as communicators. We know how to leverage channels to make things happen. So often it’s about selling a brand, but there are important messages that need to be pushed as well. The world of tomorrow is decided by the world of today, so the time is now. The question is, are you ready?

Marketing Lessons: Super Bowls Past and Present

Super Bowl may be about ads, but for marketers there are underlying factors and opportunities there that last beyond game time. What works in the Super Bowl is a takeaway lesson for practices the rest of the year and beyond. Sometimes it’s static, as its relevancy maintains. Other times, it evolves. Most Super Bowls are a mixture of the two, capitalizing on past successes while bringing about new ones. This one was no different. The power outage created a unique situation and what happened there extended to the game’s ads as well. Most people in any spot of the game where they become disinterested turn to conversations, food and the Internet. In fact, most turn to the Internet. Specifically, social media. Whether they had TV ads or not, social media became the second ad arena for brands in this year’s game. Everyone was drawing connections to their brands in an attempt to claim a slice of the pie for themselves.

Forbes’ Jennifer Rooney notes the various examples in her article http://onforb.es/YknR9F. A few of them are mentioned here. During the power outage, Walgreens tweeted “We do carry candles. We also sell lights.” Oreo tweeted “Power out? No problem” along with an ad that ended with “You can still dunk in the dark. Tide tweeted “We can’t get your #blackout but we can get your stains out.” A clever capitalization on a popular hashtag to draw attention. All of these brands capitalized on the situation to draw an audience, others took it a step further and involved their competition. Audi tweeted “Sending some LED’s to the @mbusa Superdome right now,” drawing Mercedes-Benz into the mix. Others commented on other advertisers and drew connections between them and their brand. Right after Mio ran its spot, SodaStream tweeted “@makeitmio is delicious in SodaStream! Try it sometime.” This new trend of real-time marketing shined in this year’s Super Bowl and is one of the this year’s takeaway lessons.

Bloomberg Businessweek’s Steve McKee notes 10 others to keep in mind http://buswk.co/YPDlEE. My interpretations and applications of his points are below.

1) Put strategy first: Think about what you’re putting out there, its placement (before the game, during the game, etc.) and how it represents you. Good creativity is nothing without strategy.

2) Be relevant: For example, draw connections between your brand and what’s going on in the world. However, do it tastefully and not like that 2011 Groupon ad that tried to connect itself to Tibet.

3) Keep it simple: I’d say this year’s example of that is Dodge Ram’s ”So God Made a Farmer” combination, Paul Harvey and a series of still frames featuring pictures of farmers. A powerful but simple combination. It’s what some of the best ads are made of.

4) Show don’t tell: Actions speak louder than words, and that statement applies to ads too.

5) Invest in production values: ‘Go big or go home’ and ‘anything worth doing is worth doing right’ come to mind here. If you’re going to do it, you’ve got to do it well.

6) Provoke thought: It’s a unique angle and it stands out and engages customers. An example being the classic Apple “1984″ ad.

7) Strike an emotional chord: This year’s example of that was Budweiser’s Clydesdale ad. It tugged at heartstrings and won fans. These kinds of ads get remembered.

8) Don’t rush the sale: Continue it by expanding it to online, social media and additional spots. Tackling it from all angles is necessary. You can’t close all deals in 30 seconds. Or, even in a minute. Good things take time.

9) Reward engagement: Customers are always going to be asking “what’s in it for me if I support you?” Bring some closure to that question with contest rewards or other perks.

10) Take risks: Sometimes you succeed, sometimes you fail. You never know if you don’t try.

Some people might see this and think to next year. The smart ones will think about this year as well. These marketing lessons are not just for next year’s Super Bowl, they have applications throughout this year too. How you apply them to your brand, is up to you.

Best and Worst Super Bowl XLVII Ads

This year’s Super Bowl was an interesting one. I can honestly say I’ve never seen a power outage during a Super Bowl. In fact, I’m willing to bet that’s a rare occurrence as far as Super Bowls go. A power outage is forgivable, what I can’t forgive were all of the lackluster ads this year. Usually it’s hard to choose my favorites. This year it was hard to choose my worst because there were just that many of them. Thankfully, there were some that redeemed all of the rest. Without further adieu, my third annual best and worst ads of the Super Bowl: version XLVII.

Top Two Worst Super Bowl XLVII Ads:

 2) Samsung: My second worst pick was the Samsung Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd ad. How is it creative to mirror something that goes on everyday in real life? An ad about pitching ads? This whole ad was a snooze fest. Even if it did end up with them finding out that neither of them would be in the ad and LeBron James would be. They spent the whole ad sitting at a table talking. Boring. It failed on so many levels. Also, don’t even get me started on the lame joke about being there to meet someone named Sam Sung. After this ad, I’m ashamed to admit that I own a Samsung cell phone currently.

1) GoDaddy.com: The Samsung ad may have been bad, but it’s no match for my top worst ad. Every year GoDaddy.com fails worse than the year before. This year was no exception. There are more creative and funny ways to symbolize how you merge smart and sexy as a brand. There just are. Instead, GoDaddy choses to go with an over-the-top disgusting kiss between a nerd and Bar Rafaeli. Which lasted forever. The only positive I saw, and this is a small positive, is that they didn’t go so racy that they had to cut it short and direct you online to see the rest. That got old fast and who really wants to see something worse than they already saw anyways?

Top Two Best Superbowl XLVII Ads:

2) Budweiser: It’s Clydesdale ads never fail to deliver and are a Super Bowl standard. This one was also a great example of using storytelling and emotion to connect with consumers. A Clydesdale is raised by its owner, goes off to be a Budweiser Clydesdale, represents Budweiser in a parade, sees and remembers it’s owner who’s standing on the sidelines, and even goes after him down the street? Priceless. Another cinematic gem of an ad. It even connects to all ages. Perhaps more ads should take a clue from this tried and true format (adapted to their brand of course).

1) Doritos-Eating Goat: I know I just wrote an entire post about how everyone’s out for their 15 seconds of Superbowl fame. Usually these don’t beat the regular ads for me. Yet, again, there were so many horrible ads this year that sadly this became one of the frontrunners. It was clever, it told a story, and it kept my attention. It’s one of the best fan ads I’ve seen. Yet I have to wonder. What does it say about creatives when normal people make better and more entertaining ads? I think it should always be the other way around. Perhaps people are getting lazy. This seems to be the easy way out of creating an ad, having someone else do the work. By no means am I glorifying this type of ad, but perhaps the ad world needs more people like the person who created this one. With this year’s showing, I’d have to say it couldn’t hurt.

There you have it, my top two worst and best ads of Super Bowl XLVII. Additionally, honorable mention for worst goes out to the VW Jamaican accent ad, because that was pretty racist. Honorable mention for best goes out to the Dodge Ram’s Paul Harvey God Made a Farmer ad. Perhaps I’m biased because it relates to my current job, but this one gave credit where credit was due and in the best way possible. In the same way, I’ve done that here. I hope you enjoyed this year’s selections. Be sure to join me next year for more!

15 Seconds of SuperBowl Ad Fame

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Especially if one of your favorite teams is playing in next Sunday’s SuperBowl. Me, I don’t really have a favorite team. I like football much more than I used to, but my primary draw is still the same as it was in the beginning. The SuperBowl ads. Some might even claim there’s a dual SuperBowl going on because the SuperBowl is also the SuperBowl of ads. One of the biggest trends in the last 5 years has been the 15 minutes of fame type ads featuring consumers. Usually they’re competing for prizes. The other type is those “celebrities” who are cashing in on their 15 seconds of fame in other areas of entertainment. Both will be at this year’s SuperBowl.

A familiar one that was one of the originators of this trend is Doritos, who is again hosting its “Crash the Superbowl” contest with 5 finalists http://bit.ly/UvwZKQ. As per usual, most of them feature children or animals. Familiar ploys of creativity. Only two of them will air during the Superbowl and be eligible for additional prizes based on their USA Today Ad Meter Ranking. $1 million for an ad that scores or ranks #1, $600,000 for an ad that ranks #2 and $400,000 for an ad that ranks #3. The finalist whose ad scores the highest in these rankings will also get to work with film director Michael Bay on the next “Transformers” movie installment. Keep in mind that each of these 5 finalists has already won $25,000 and gets flown to the SuperBowl to watch the game from a private luxury suite.

Pizza Hut is also stepping in with a fairly creative approach http://usat.ly/112g5HK. Much more so than Doritos’ approach is anyways. It’s relating the ‘Hut’ in its name to the familiar football chant before a ball is snapped to the quarterback. My first question is why didn’t they capitalize on this concept earlier? Although I’m sure they had more important trains of thought to follow. Yet, I digress. Football fans were asked to submit clips no longer than 15 seconds featuring their best, silliest or most creative usage of the word ‘hut’. The word has to be mentioned at least once, because it ties Pizza Hut to football and vice versa. Really, that’s the whole point. Making these two ideas as synonymous as a Pavlovian response tactic. There could be as many as 5-10 winners, each sharing a spot in a commercial scheduled to air a few minutes before kickoff. Pizza Hut is also banking on this increasing its social media connection.

Then there’s Psy, renowned for his “Gangnam Style” that people will probably soon tire of because they’ve heard it everywhere. I personally like the song and I’m sure there’s plenty of others who still do. However, the fact remains that most 15 minutes of fame people don’t last that long and supersaturation is one of the reasons for that. Psy is being featured in Wonderful Pistachios’ ad as part of its “Get Crackin” campaign http://bit.ly/Ya51DY. The ad will be a 30 second spot slated for the 3rd quarter. Wonderful Pistachios is also banking on its social media connection, urging YouTube creators with the most views to film their own parodies after the SuperBowl ad debuts. Ultimately they are banking on Psy’s 15 minutes of fame, as Pizza Hut and Doritos aim to do with consumers.

15 minutes of fame is really 15 seconds in the SuperBowl. These ads are funny and relevant, yet the reason they are is that they stand out. Not every ad is like this. A much higher percentage of ads are generated by public relations agencies for their clients. These ads are just as creative, if not more so. Yet, more and more consumer-centric ads are making it in. At some point they’ll probably fall prey to the same supersaturation as those they feature. Don’t get me wrong, originality is important but these ads don’t really stand the test of time like ads featuring the Budweiser Clydesdales do for instance. True creative still comes from creatives. Not just anyone can make an ad, just like not everyone can sing. 15 seconds of SuperBowl fame is fine, as long as it doesn’t take over and push other creative completely out of the picture.