31/01/2014 Everyone’s watching the Super Bowl now. Not just big brother:
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Ridley Scott’s incredible 60 second ad for the all new Apple Macintosh, ‘1984’, inspired by Orwell’s novel. This commercial launched the Mac and marked the beginning of big budget, big impact Super Bowl advertising.
Fast-forward 30 years and the Super Bowl is as much about Apple (again), Ford, Budweiser, Axe (Lynx to us British types), H&M, the RED campaign, Captain America, X Men, Spiderman, The Muppets, Transformer 4 and Robocop, as it is about the Seahawks and the Broncos. (Sorry, who are the last two on that list?)
This time last year no-one that I know would’ve put the words ‘Oreo’ and ‘Super Bowl’ in the same sentence. Then, that brand did something very simple, clear and effective with their ‘dunk in the dark’ tweet. Oreo did what all social content should do – be timely, relevant and generate conversation – whether it’s a tweet, a Snapchat, a status update or an Instagram video. Arby’s did it again to great acclaim and a re-tweet from Pharrell Williams during the Grammy’s only last weekend.
Brands – including so many who are not actually advertising on TV during the Super Bowl have invested millions of dollars to entertain, engage and activate their consumers. This Sunday we can expect to see some ground breaking social content from Audi, Jaguar, Adobe and all the brands and film titles listed above. I’m expecting to see a step change in real time marketing content with social newsrooms and nerve centers anxiously waiting to create and post content that mirrors exactly what people are tweeting about, minute-by-minute. I, for one, cannot wait.
We have been working closely with our clients, creating and amplifying social content that brings film into the online conversations that are already happening. For example, when heavy snow hit the U.S East Coast back in December we were working on The Wolverine Home Entertainment campaign and posted this image. It proved to be one of the most viral pieces of content used in the campaign:
At Way To Blue we are focusing our attention this weekend on analyzing the Intent to Purchase driven by the millions of dollars being invested in TV and online content around the Super Bowl. Conversation is great, but ideally this will lead to a sale. On Monday, we will be publishing insight that looks beyond the buzz, at the commercial value of people talking about the big brands and movies that will feature in the Super Bowl this year.
When developing strategy, content and campaigns for our clients we use the themes and drivers of ‘Intent to View or Purchase’ as a framework to guide our thinking. We believe this ensures our creative ideas are firmly rooted in consumer insight that will make a commercial difference.
Check back on Monday to see who really wins the Super Bowl.
Daniel Heale is Chief Client Officer at Way To Blue, a global communications agency specializing in insight, strategy, social, digital and offline PR