Super Bowl Ads – As Bad As The Game Itself

Here we go again.

Loyal readers of this blog know that I post almost the exact same message every year after the Super Bowl lamenting how horribly ineffective that year’s commercials were as a whole.

Click Here to read last year’s post.

Click Here to read my post from two years ago.

As expected, this year’s big game was no different.

Sharp marketers watching the game at home could sympathize with Peyton Manning playing the game on the field, as our sensibilities were attacked with a non-stop, relentless barrage of confusing ads from the start of the game all the way through to the finish.

The only thing more lopsided than the game’s 43-8 final score was the “final score” of effective-to-wasteful ads, which was 52-2.

*NOTE: Of course, sharp marketers don’t judge Super Bowl ads the same way the uninformed masses do, rating them based on how “funny” or “entertaining” they are. Only big corporations with salaried employees responsible for deciding how to spend huge advertising budgets can even afford to believe the preposterous proposition that an advertisement’s goal is to entertain the viewer. Responsible, accountable business owners know that all that matters in marketing is Return On Investment (“ROI”) – measured in revenue and/or profits compared to the cost to produce and air the ad.

Case in point: An ad telling the story of a doberman/chihuahua mix wreaking havoc on a dog show scored high in audience tests of “amusing,” “entertaining,” “funny,” etc. Do you remember that one (it aired only 3 days ago)?

Okay. Good. Now answer this question:

What product was that ad promoting?

If you remember that, congratulations – you’re one of a VERY small minority.

Such absurdity is par for the course in Super Bowl ads year after year: Advertisers happily spend millions of dollars trying to entertain the audience for a few seconds – without regard to actual ROI.

Big corporations can usually afford such folly, of course, simply because they’re big. The danger is when small business owners think that’s a smart strategy and try to copy the concept in their own advertising. That’s a BIG mistake.

Here’s why…

Big corporations usually sell their products in hundreds or thousands of retail sales outlets all across the country, filled with highly-trained and highly-motivated salespeople, so that all they need to do is to get you to think about possibly buying their product, so that you visit one of their stores or think pleasant thoughts about their product when you see it on a store shelf.

But small business owners need to get prospects to contact us directly, to make a purchase or set an appointment immediately. That’s a MUCH tougher job than just entertaining people or “getting your name out there.”

We also need to track all of our advertising and marketing, because we need to know whether we’re investing our hard-earned dollars in the right place or not. We can’t just burn through a few million dollars trying to get a few momentary laughs and hoping that will somehow magically translate into some sales down the road, like the “strategy” that big corporations employ.

And we can’t waste any money on “building our brand” – that will happen naturally, as a result of constantly making compelling offers to solve problems for people, and then actually following through with our solutions.

So…

What do we have to do that most big corporations do not?

We have to use effective direct-response marketing strategies and principles.

That means that our ads must include An Offer (the more compelling, the better, of course), and a Response Mechanism – a way for the prospect to take an immediate action that we can track directly to that particular ad.

Over half the Super Bowl ads contained obscure “hashtags” in weak attempts to create some kind of “social media buzz” about their company. But only one company actually ran a direct-response marketing ad.

Did you notice which company that was?

If you did, good for you. You’re a sharp direct-response marketing student who “gets it.”

If you didn’t, here’s the good news: I’m going to tell you about it right now.

The company is T-Mobile.

They ran two different ads: one a complicated, funny and entertaining ad starring celebrity/athlete Tim Tebow in five different amusing and football-related scenes within 30 seconds, and the other a simple, ugly, 12 sentences of white text on their standard pink colored background.

The offer in both ads was the same simple, compelling one: “Switch to T-Mobile, and we’ll pay off your contract.”

The Tebow ad ended by showing just the main TMobile.com website URL, while the purer direct-response marketing plain text ad directed viewers to a specific landing page (“TMobile.com/breakup”) at the end.

Millions of Americans have been disappointed with their cell phone service provider at one time or another, but have stayed with them because of the outrageous hassle and cost associated with getting out of their contract. T-Mobile recognizes this, and made their simple, bold offer to these millions of Americans.

Of course I don’t know their numbers, but my guess is that T-Mobile will EASILY make back MANY times their $4,000,100 investment (I’m computing that figure based on the $4 million cost for the ad time plus 100 bucks for some low-level employee to type out those 12 sentences in white text on a pink background and add 30 seconds of background music).

Here’s that 2014 Super Bowl Most-Effective Ad:

Now THAT is exactly the type of simple, effective, easy-to-create direct-response marketing ad that all small business owners should use – regardless of the medium. That will work on a TV commercial, print ad, postcard, website, flyer, salesletter, business card, telephone script, etc., etc., etc.

So…

What can YOU do to create YOUR simple, compelling Offer – and then how can you communicate that Offer to your ideal prospects, including a clear, unique Response Mechanism so that you can tract exactly how many people responded to your Offer?

**BONUS SECTION**

BONUS #1:

One other company ran a direct-response advertisement – but it ran just after the game ended, so it doesn’t “officially” count as a “Super Bowl Ad.”

Can you spot the Offer and Response Mechanism in their ad?

BONUS #2:

I absolutely LOVED the concept behind one of perennial superstar-Super Bowl Advertiser GoDaddy’s two Super Bowl ads. Actor John Turturro introduced the audience to a woman named “Gwen” who proved the fallacy of the favorite recent mantra of politicians (“We need more middle-class jobs”) by dramatically quitting her “good, middle-class job” on national TV, turning her part-time hobby of six years into a full-time business.

Of course Big Business and Big Government wants Americans to stay brainwashed into believing that they should “aspire” to working “a good job.”

But of course, we entrepreneurs know better.

Welcome to the real American Dream, Gwen.

Here’s hoping you use effective direct-response marketing to build your business into a tremendous success!