Ok, it wouldn’t be right for a blog about marketing not to comment on the travesties which were the Super Bowl Ads that aired yesterday. I don’t follow sports, so I could care less about the game and I really don’t watch much television at all. And usually when I do watch I fast forward much of the show and watch the commercials. I know…I’m crazy.

Honestly, I didn’t even watch many of the commercials live on the air. Only those I caught while someone else had the game on. But I did go back and watch them all on the internet and wanted to give you my impression and feedback from a marketing perspective.

Travis and I have always had a strong belief that Super Bowl Advertising is bad for entrepreneurs and small business owners even if they don’t buy an ad. And these ads prove our case. More on that in a minute.

At $3 million for: 30 seconds of air time, there is absolutely no excuse for a super bowl advertiser or their agency for that matter, to run an ad with poor strategy and/or a lack of measurability.

I keep hearing from marketing and advertising trade journals and business publications that there is a shift away from traditional Madison Avenue creative crap toward results oriented, measurable direct response advertising, but yesterday’s Super Bowl Ads demonstrate that this is clearly not the case.

Why do these ads suck so badly? Most likely it’s because these big companies can’t get out of the way of their ego and “brand heritage” long enough to open their eyes and ask themselves some fundamental questions about their marketing like:

• Does it speak to my target audience?
• Does it hit their emotional hot buttons?
• Does it clearly deliver my GPS – differentiating position?
• Does it have a clearly defined next step?
• Can we measure its effectiveness?

For most of the ads I watched, the answer was a resounding NO.

I’m not going to comment on all the bad ones. There’s just not enough space in the blogosphere for it all. Like the CareerBuilder.com ad that didn’t even clearly display the URL and it’s a web site for Pete’s sake. The stupidity is maddening.

A few spots had some redeeming qualities. SalesGenie.com, a newcomer to the Super Bowl Ad circuit did use some smart elements in their ads. In fact the ads weren’t bad at all. They followed a clearly identifiable problem, agitate solve formula. They had a call to action, a good offer and a trackable url. Not surprising because the company is a direct marketing company that serves many direct marketers (us included).

I’m not sure if the targeting was on point but at least they can measure the results and determine whether it was worth it and whether they should try it again. As for the creative…I’m not sure the cartoony, racial stereotyping ads were the way to go. Probably could have been done a lot better.

Toshiba had a very simple ad that tied into watching the game and asked, “What are you going to do after the game?” Then they went on to make a case for their DVD player. They explained why it was better and I think the target of TV watcher was a match. And unbelievably they weren’t afraid to actually sell something. They used a classic price leader. I give it a C+.

Victoria's secret had a great ad... well on target. But died due to lack of an offer, call to action and tracking device. It was a crime because they had a perfect tie in with men and Valentine’s day. Perfect segue for an online offer, free gift with purchase or opt-in…SOMETHING! Utterly shameful for a catalog publisher and direct marketer.

The Sunslik ad had some very powerful elements. They did a lot of difficult things right. They tapped into the credibility and power of celebrity endorsement, tied in new technologies and a social media experience encouraging their target (women) to share their stories. The commercial sent viewers to a web site and encouraged them to share their story. I’m not sure if women are a good target market for Super Bowl Ad placement but I haven’t done the research to prove otherwise. Hopefully they did. Unfortunately the whole effort falls flat on its face when you go to the landing page displayed in the ad lifecantwait.com. The site was uninteresting, confusing and left you with a feeling of not sure what this is all about or what to do next.

Go Daddy.com didn’t even send the viewers to a landing page that was specific to the Super Bowl ad. They could have told the story of getting rejected by the network, had clips of other news outlets talking about it and then had the commercial. Instead they just sent people right to the home page with no direct tracking. Sure you can see how many people come right during and after the spot runs, but that ain’t it.

That’s a summary of the good ads – seriously. The rest aren’t even worth talking about.

Why Super Bowl Ads Cost Small Business Owners Tons Of Money Every Year Even If They Never Buy One!

How can an ad cost someone money if they didn’t pay for it? These Super Bowl ads are everything that’s wrong with traditional marketing and business owners try to emulate them in their own business and marketing campaigns.

I’ll talk more about this in a future post.

What are your thoughts on the ads? Best, worst? Leave a comment and let us know.

Update on Monday, February 4, 2008 at 09:01PM by Travis Miller & Jimmy Vee

additional comments from Travis Miller

Last night - after we released our Super Bowl opinion post - I caught a segment on The O'Reilly Factor where Bill was interviewing Barbara Lippert of Adweek magazine and Laura Ries, co-author of Origin of Brands on their opinion of the Super Bowl ads.

The conversation was positively mind-numbing.

Lippert's pick for best ad was the Coke spot that featured Charlie Brown, Underdog and Stewie parade balloons fighting over a bottle of Coke. Bill asks, "That's supposed to make me want to buy Coke?" She responds, "Well, it leaves a smile on your face."

The look she shot Bill was priceless. It seemed to say, "Oh, don't be so naive, Bill - this isn't about buying or selling - this is about brand equity and brand heritage - How dare you suggest that an advertiser would try to sell something as a result of their ads." Of course, the idea of selling through advertising seems to violate the value system of the big agencies. Gosh...if the purpose of the ads were to sell, then sales didn't increase, that would mean the ad didn't work. We can't have that!

Ries' pick for best ad was the Budweiser spot which featured the Clydesdale and the Dalmation and ended with the horse pulling a train. Bill asks, "What's the linkage?" She responds..."Oh common, those are iconic images for the brand - this was brilliant - 123 - brilliant!"

So, according to the advertising elite, the best ads were those that "left a smile on your face" and displayed "icon brand images." And they both dodged the question..."how is this supposed to increase sales?"

Maybe they're right, in terms of Coke and Budweiser. But what about the millions of businesses who don't rate on that scale -- you know, those pesky small businesses who need for their advertising to deliver a measurable return on investment, otherwise they may go out of business?

CNN Money reported that "experts" are saying that the Super Bowl ads are a good buy. Specifically because the Super Bowl may be the only big advertising event of the year, since the Oscars may be canceled due to the writers' strike.

From the CNN Money article:

"It's all about value," said Michael Pavone, president of brand consulting firm Pavone, the group behind spotbowl.com, a Web site that analyzes Super Bowl advertising.

"There's no other venue that gives your brand that kind of instant Americana," Pavone said of the Super Bowl.

These "experts" also suggested that we would see far more interactive tie-ins. That didn't turn out to be true, unfortunately -- despite the epic role the Internet plays in most American's lives these days.

This kind of advertising, and these kinds of ads, are actually harmful to most normal businesses. Why? Because these ads have become so iconic and so talked about (which is a good thing for the advertisers -- the media attention is probably more effective than the ads themselves) many normal business owners try to emulate this strategy...thinking of advertising as an event, instead of as a process...thinking of the purpose of advertising as being to leave a smile on the viewer's face or extending the brand image.

The other danger that comes from this type of advertising is the notion that viewers watch programming for the ads. In the case of the Super Bowl, this is somewhat true. But, if you removed the game, and just left the ads, I'm pretty confident the viewership would see a mighty drop! But this is just the kind of conceit that comes from advertising elitists. They convince themselves somehow that the advertising is more important than the content. IT IS NOT. Wake up and face the facts: American's are sick of being interrupted by advertising.

This idea causes normal business owners to try to create advertising that looks and smells like advertising (because they falsely believe people will want to see it). Instead, they should be finding ways to make their advertising look like content. People watch TV for the shows, listen to the radio for the talk or music, read magazines and papers for the stories. They don't do any of those things for the ads. You need to get this part right first.

Remember - only around 30 advertisers participated in the frenzy this weekend. The rest of us should spend time thinking about how we're going to create marketing that will attract new customers, captivate their interest, invigorate their emotions, and motivate them to take action. Smiles and iconic images should be a secondary or tertiary consideration.