“The Super Bowl is a big cultural moment that’s about people coming together for a good time, so we believe we need to be there.” -Pio Schunker, VP/Creative, Coca-Cola
“After last year’s experience, I don’t have the stomach for it.” -Brian Sharples, CEO HomeAway.com
Pio and Brian articulate the two ends of Super Bowl advertising. Every season since 1984 some ads enhance “the big cultural moment” positively, and some negatively. The majority of the spots that fill the forty six minutes of ad time fall somewhere in the middle–ranked modestly by all the ad monitors and gradually fade away.
This year NBC is charging $3.5 million per :30 spot. Last season the average cost for a :30 ad was around $3 million. Hard to believe that just six years ago the cost was $2.5 million.
This season many marketers are following what VW did last year and releasing the ads beforehand. Consumers “like to be let in on the joke, let in on the story early” said Mike Sheldon, the chief executive of VW’s agency Deutsch/LA.
He’s right. These two ads are already at nearly 16 million views:
Judging from some of the pre-releases, it might be a good show this year. Socially, if you’d like to weigh-in on ads during the game and have them count in some form #BrandBowl is your hashtag where tweets will be streamed live on Boston.com as well as a new mobile-friendly version of the well-known Brand Bowl site during the game.
This season features two major market teams in a re-match. Last year saw 111 million viewers with two very popular teams: the Packers and the Steelers. This year the NFL could break the record again and bring total viewers to around 115 million.
There have beentonsofarticlesabouttheads. But our favorite is perhaps from Stephen Marche at Esquire who talks about the ubiquity of marketing and how there “is no outside the ad” anymore, regardless of where we are. We often don’t realize the degree to which marketing subtly surrounds our life. But the Super Bowl, proudly, just puts it out there:
“The Super Bowl offers the possibility of a new relationship with advertising, one that’s different from the game of hide-and-seek we usually play. It runs against the tendency for naked pleas to become grainy and peripheral. It puts advertising at the center and asks: Which are the good ads and products and which are the bad ads and products? And thus it serves the same function today as the great medieval trade festivals and the World’s Fairs of the early twentieth century: providing chances for the marketplace to indulge in fantasies of industrial possibility.”
Deloitte just released their 6th State of the Media Democracy. The survey of 2,000 people (ages 14 – 75) focused primarily on the proliferation of devices: smartphones, tablets and DVRs. If you’re in need of up-to-date numbers the study is another good example about how access to content is increasing American media consumption.
For tablet owners, 51% say they use their tablet in place of a laptop at home.
Of particular note, however, is that of DVRs. In this survey only 44% of people had DVRs as part of their current cable package. We thought that would be a larger number.
Find Deloitte’s State of the Media Democracy here.
The 2011 holiday shopping season turned out to be a solid one for retailers. But it was a strange and bumpy ride to get there… Black Friday started things off well but December sales were weak up until closer to Christmas when shoppers returned to stores. Overall, holiday retail sales were up 4.5% compared to last season while average daily spending during the holidays was $83/day (vs. $85/day last season per Gallup).
The post-Black Friday lull was deeper than usual this year. The two weeks after Thanksgiving weekend showed the biggest percentage sales decline since 2000. Then, during the final two weeks before Christmas, sales surged again, by the highest rate since 2005.
Interestingly, Christmas Eve and December 26th were the second and third heaviest spending days of the season. Which is odd because many analysts didn’t even have December 24th forecast to be among the top 10 days. (But it was on a Saturday this year, which should have tipped a few off.)
Online retail in particular had a great season, up 15% versus last season. (Weekly online spending is below–click to enlarge.)
The combination of aggressive retailer discounting, the long-enduring recession and some rebounding activity created four types of shoppers this season:
The Bargain Timer:
Wait until the prices are at their absolute lowest, then strike hard.
The Midnight Buyer:
Get the best inventory no matter what time.
The Returner:
Over-buy and return. (Interestintly, retailers plan on returning nearly 10 cents of every dollar taken in during the holidays.)
The “Me” Shopper:
One for you, one for me.
Most likely, everyone showed signs of each this season.
But a strong holiday shopping season kicks 2012 off in a welcomed positive direction and somewhat helps abate the worries of low consumer demand which, per McKinsey, is the key thing executives report to be concerned with as 2012 begins.
Online retail in particular had a great season, up 15% versus last season.
2011′s Black Friday and Thanksgiving weekend brought a record 226 million shoppers to stores. Spending rang in at $52 billion, which was 16% more than last year according to the National Retail Federation. A complete look at the last six years of shopping activity is below (click to enlarge):
A couple of random retail notes about last weekend: Men purchased more than women with an average spend of $484 versus $317 and, on average, US shoppers visited 3.1 stores per shopping trip.
Online spending over the weekend was up 26% per comScore to $816 million as 50 million US shoppers took to the web on Black Friday, 35% more than last season. Amazon led all sites with 50% more visitors than any other retailer.
How much did each shopper spend online? According to IBM Coremetrics the average order was $190 for 6 items–interestingly, both of these figures were slightly lower than last year*. But overall a jump of 26% in online spending is good news considering that last season online spending rose only 9%.
Mobile shopping was another area that saw significant growth this season with PayPal reporting a spending increase of 516% over last year courtesy of four times as many people shopping Black Friday sales on their mobile phones.
Most reports cite three key reasons for the holiday weekend upsurge:
- Pre-Midnight Openings
- Positive Strong Merchandising
- Competitive Price-to-Value Relationships
This is probably true as yesterday’s Cyber Monday (a phrase coined in 2006) continued the positive sales momentum. Online traffic yesterday was up 43% from last year with online sales up 18% (as of 9pm last night). Electronics were the most popular item purchased, up 26%.
Moving into December the National Retail Federation has estimated that holiday sales will increase to $465.6 billion this year, up about 2.8% versus last season.
Yet while all of these numbers are strong, and publications like Reuters are posting headlines like holiday shopping is off to a solid start, it doesn’t necessarily mean this holiday season will be breaking records. RetailSails provides us with a good historical reminder…
“Black Friday weekend has historically not been a very good predictor of overall Holiday retail sales. For example, both the National Retail Federation and ShopperTrak saw record spending over Black Friday weekend in 2008, but overall that Holiday season saw by far the worst performance on record as overall sales in the November-December period tumbled 4.4%.”
Additionally, with 84% of American households saying today that they will spend the same amount or less than they did last holiday season we should look for retailers to continue their aggressive approaches all month long with some doing exceedingly well at the expense of others.
Regardless of what you thought of this new Twinings Tea ad, do you need to see it two more times to understand it?
How about this? Need three times?
For decades there’s been a commonly-accepted industry rule that an ad needs to run three times in order for it to be effective on the viewer. Where did this come from and is it true?
Paul Feldwick, an exceptional brand planning thinker, recently wrote about this over at Warc. I’ll let you read it for yourself but basically the idea of “three frequency” started in the research department of GE in 1972. Their findings stated that the first ad impression allows the viewer to understand what it is, the second is to evaluate its relevancy and the third would be a true reminder.
Around the same time another study was published by the Marketing Science Institute that talked about how two ad exposures were needed for brand switching. This study was then basically combined with the GE study and in 1979 the Advertising Research Foundation published a paper solidifying a recommended frequency of 3x.
So we’ve had this three frequency idea for over 30 years and it’s worth a renewed look…
One Ad
First, before we immediately jump to the importance of three ads, what’s the value of just one ad?
Single-source panels (research sources that link buying behavior and advertising exposure) have shown repeatedly that in 45 – 50% of cases exposure to just one ad in a short period before buying increases the probability of buying that brand by a considerable degree. One ad, done well, does a lot of work without relying on the reinforcement of repeat exposure.
This points to the core purpose of advertising that Stephen King, the founder of Account Planning at JWT, called saleability. Yes, advertising can create sales immediately, but it also makes it so everything else–from packaging to pricing–has an easier job of selling.
But because of its linear structure, the frequency model infers that we can’t get something the first time. It presumes that we make all of our decisions in a very logical, processed, step-by-step manner.
Is this how we think? Someone tells us something so we know about it, then we’re told the same thing again so we can determine if it makes sense for us and then we’re reminded a third time so we can act. Do you need these three steps appropriately spaced out when discussing what you want for dinner tonight? Or accepting a friend’s recommendation on a movie?
But the 1972 GE research had to have a reason to say we made buying decisions like this. One possible answer: consider that in the early 70s if we saw an ad for something new, like Instant Breakfast, we didn’t have any options for more information. All we had was what an ad told us, what a friend said or our own eventual trial.
So we waited for information to arrive. Attitudes surrounding consumerism moved slower than they do today. And if a research project discussed ad exposure and purchase behavior it probably would have reflected this sentiment.
How We Communicate
We communicate with feeling and tone. It’s commonly estimated that between 60 – 95% of all communication is non verbal and it was the research of Paul Watzlawick that helped identify that it’s the tone (or metacommunication) that provides true meaning to words that are said. Effective communication doesn’t have much to do with the order and interval of spoken events… It has to do with the way things are said.
It’s emotion and feeling that motivates. As neurologist Donald Calne nicely stated:
“the essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusion”.
Howard Gossage once wrotethat the buying of (advertising) time or space is not the taking out of a hunting license on someone else’s private preserve but is the renting of a stage on which we may perform.
This melds well with the idea of how things are said. Volume and repetition upon one person reaches diminishing returns quickly. The ad connects with them or it doesn’t and from there we’ll either have effective communication or non-communication.
Like this new ad from Deutsch. If you’re a gamer it connects on first viewing. If you’re not you could see it 1,000 times and still not have any idea what’s going on.
Distracted Viewers
But viewers are distracted. 40% of tablet and smartphone owners use them while watching TV. And with current adoption rates smartphones are approaching half of all mobile phones in the US. We are absorbing content on the go all the time. And when something connects we have instant access to take a next step. Danah Boyd articulated this perfectly:
“The goal is not to be a passive consumer of information or to simply tune in when the time is right, but rather to live in a world where information is everywhere. To be peripherally aware of information as it flows by, grabbing it at the right moment when it is most relevant and valuable, entertaining or insightful. Living with, in, and around information. Most of that information is social information, but some of it is entertainment information or news information or productive information.”
So what are the odds that one single placement (or only one execution for that matter) is going to reach us and be relevant as we dash around our lives, zoning in and out of digital absorption in between things? We need multiple chips across the roulette board to hedge our odds of engaging someone correctly. This requires a diversified and nearly constant plan. Colleen DeCourcy referred to this type of thinking once as constant communications, which I rather like.
Perhaps it’s the word and meaning of frequency that should be challenged today. We don’t need to run an ad three times in order for one person to come to a decision. We need to create multiple opportunities for at least one relevant, emotion-forward, successful connection.
Or as a sentence in the original 1972 GE research report on frequency stated: “Like a product sitting on a shelf, you never know when the customer is going to be looking for you, so you must rent the shelf space all the time.”
If you’re anything like me, fall holds a special place in your heart. Long sleeves start making an appearance, those beautiful knee-high Frye boots come out of hiding, and the air holds a crispness that both smells good and is a welcome reprieve from the 90-degree days.
But mostly, TV’s fall lineup begins.
Like every year, there are plenty of new shows debuting on our prime time networks. This season looks to be much more successful than the past two or three years. Reality TV is taking a back seat to scripted dramas and sitcoms (say word!), which signifies to me that networks are playing to the public’s desire for something meatier than the gaucheness of “real-life” waste-ertainment. (It should be said that not all reality TV is crap. I seriously cannot get enough of “Dual Survival.” That guy is barefoot!)
Each network seems to be jumping on the glittering vampire genre, capitalizing on the raging popularity of this topic. We’ll also see a supernatural glint conveyed in both police procedurals as well as regular scripted dramas. Trying to capture some of the success of nostalgia-driven shows a la “Mad Men,” ABC’s “Pan Am,” and NBC’s “Playboy Club” are hitting it hard. And, of course, the crime/doctor/lawyer dramas are back with a vengeance. Because most of the “Law and Order” suite is retiring, as well as some of the “CSI” suite, there will be a strong demand for replacements.
My picks are “Pan Am” and “Once Upon A Time.” Anything done by the creators of “LOST” has my vote, and “Pan Am” has that nostalgia-rich hue to it that is sure to charm many.
“The New Girl” with Zooey Deschanel (how do you not love her?) will probably do very well, and so will “Terra Nova,” a sci-fi thriller produced by Steven Spielberg. I personally am looking forward to “Allen Gregory” (as much as I hate to admit it), which is an animated sitcom with the voice of Jonah Hill.
“Awake” is the story of a man who is living a most unusual double life. Because of a car accident, he alternates days where his wife is alive, but his son is dead, and then vice versa. Gorgeous.
Shamelessly, I have to recommend a guilty pleasure (which is what the CW is all about for anyone over the age of 18). “The Secret Circle,” if nothing else, will most likely deliver a good stash of hip new music. (I mean, let’s be real. That’s the only reason I watch “Gossip Girl.” The music. I swear.)
Ultimately, the success of each show will depend as much on the writing, acting, and production as the general audience’s affinity to the network.
Which do you think will succeed? Let me know, but of course, not during the hours of 7-10pm M-F – I’ve got TV to watch.
It just looks like a 3D-kinetic-paper-sculpture thingumbob. Or, Behind-The-Scenes of the Idaho Winter Campaign.
In traditional print advertising, placement is key. It’s all about reaching the right audience at the right place, at the right time. Different media outlets and publications are combined to achieve a desired reach and frequency level, and all that. That is so old school, though.
When Drake Cooper was asked by the Idaho Division of Tourism to find new ways to bring the Idaho Winter Adventure to life, we decided it was time to get off the page and get out into the real world. With the primary target of neighboring Northwest metropolitan areas, we installed a giant paper snow sculpture in one of the most heavily traveled areas, the Bellevue Square in downtown Bellevue. With a holiday foot traffic of over 120,000 shoppers a day, this opportunity proved to be a no-brainer considering that a print ad may take up to one month to reach just 400,000 impressions.
Under the call-to-action moniker “Tear it up,” shoppers are treated to a visually arresting installation constructed by Hens & Chicks Collective as an artful reminder of Idaho’s wide-open winter escapes and jaw-dropping snow assets, and adventure possibilities.
(This is the trailer for the Tear It Up Installation. The making-of-video is even more awesome, with behind-the-scenes look at how Hens & Chicks Collective work.)
At several kiosks on site, visitors were prompted to visit the Idaho Winter website every week in order to enter to win a series of impressive prize packages in any of Idahoʼs deluxe key resort destinations. Even Jake Moe, co-founder of Powder Magazine, was on hand to answer questions about Idaho snow. Visitors to the website could check out current powder conditions, learn about other Idaho resorts, watch the behind the scenes video on the massive snow sculpture, and share with friends via Facebook and Twitter.
Call it luck, or some insider strategery, the installation launched just 50 yards from the grand opening of the Bellevue Square Microsoft Store. This event drew large crowds and long lines along with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and celebs like Apolo Anton Ohno, Dave Mathews Band, and Miley Cyrus. This flips the idea of distribution—the audience comes to us.
One further nod to Microsoft was the integration of Microsoft Tag technology for the QR codes on the display. This allowed people to access the Idaho winter website by simply using their mobile devices to snap an image of the code, go online, and enter the contest.
The results? With over 21,000 website visitors, 11,000+ sweepstakes entries, 6,119 partner opt-ins, 20 promotional offers (both online and at Bellevue Square)—the winter installation “ad” thingumbob is going strong.
High-Fives to all the suppliers and partners that donated over $30,000 in prizes.
Shout-Out: Idaho Division of Tourism, Idaho Film Office, Ski Idaho, Sun Valley Resort, Brundage, Schweitzer, Grand Targhee, Horizon Air, Smith Optics, EpicQuest, Kemper Development Company, Vision Marketing, Kira, Sara, and Shannon with Hens & Chicks Artist Collective, Mitch Mattraw with Cabfare productions, Lisa Gerber, Jennie Myers, Joe Quatrone, Josh Mercaldo, Justin Yonk, Lindsay Shumate, Amanda Cash-Crowley.
