Super Bowl Commercials
Super Bowl advertising: What really works?
Introduction. 1. Introduction. Once a
year almost the entire U.S. population
sits down to watch the same program, the
Super Bowl. But they are also
watching scores of brand new commercials. The
commercials they are watching
are produced by the best and the brightest in the
business using immense
amounts of money. At a record average of $2.2 million
dollars per 30-second
spot, 25 percent more than 1999 commercial spots, each
commercial is very
special or at least should be.( ) Research shows that Super
bowl commercials
are recalled at more than double the rate of commercials run
during "normal"
prime time programming. ( ) And with 58 commercials
scheduled, it's important
to be special, creative, and original. It would be a
colossal waste of money,
after all, if viewers turned sponsors' shill time into
opportunities for
refrigerator runs and bathroom breaks. The Superbowl ads cost
$165 million
dollars to make and then display. ( ) ABC estimated 130,745,000
people
watched the game, making it the fifth-biggest audience for any TV
telecast.
1999's Super bowl game, broadcast by Fox, was watched by 127.5
million. ( )
Commercials aired during the Super Bowl can generate almost as much
attention
as the football itself. If the game fails to be comparative early on,
there
can be significant fall off in viewers. Advertisers whose commercials air
in
the fourth quarter of a lopsided game can take as much of beating as
the
losing team. The reverse also can be true, however. If the game is close,
no one
will be going anywhere and more people will view the commercials.
Purpose for
the study. The purpose of this study is to determine whether or
not it is
financially feasible for Super Bowl advertisers to pay high cost
commercials
spots shown during the prime time. The Super Bowl telecast
typically attracts
the biggest TV audience of the year and it has become a
showcase for advertising
as well, allowing the network that carries it to
charge seemingly endlessly
escalating prices. To millions of people, half the
fun of watching the Super
Bowl is the commercials. But do people really
pay attention to what is
advertised or do they just watch the commercials to
find out if they are funny?
The study will focus on audience's retention,
and advertising effectiveness.
This study will be a valuable tool for
companies that wish to advertise during
future Super bowl events. Advertising
companies can utilize this study to
evaluate the effectiveness upon the
audience. II. Methodology. People can forget
advertising very rapidly. So we
will wait a week or two before checking to see
if commercials are still
having a measurable effect on them. When we contact
them we want to use
something that gets through to virtually everybody,
everywhere, on the first
try. With today's busy lifestyles, voice mail and
answering machines, the
telephone will not be the method of choice. We will do
this type of ad
tracking by reaching all types of people everywhere, and we
wanted the number
who decline to participate to be as small as possible. We will
accomplish all
these objectives by mailing questionnaires to a nationwide sample
drawn from
all households for which an address is available from either an
auto
registration or a telephone listing, six days after the Super Bowl.
First: How
many noticed the commercials? Recognition provides the best
measure of
intrusiveness because it is the most accurate, complete and
reliable measure of
the number that noticed the commercial. It separates the
people who noticed a
commercial from those who ignored it, or were never
exposed to it, so we can see
if it had any effect on them. It shows if the
communication process had a chance
to start. We will also look at a key
measure of the information communicated by
the commercials. How many
remembered who they were for? Some commercials for
jeans and credit cards did
an excellent job getting noticed but not in getting
the name across. Second:
How many were affected by the commercials they noticed?
The previous
measures only show if the commercial had a chance to affect people.
To
find out if it actually did, two types of measures will be used --
likability
and diagnostics. However, if people like a commercial but can't
remember who it
was for, it can't have an effect on sales. So, we combine the
two in our second
basic measure of advertising's impact: the percent of
recognizers that knew who
it was for and liked it. Third: What gives the most
bang per buck? How do these
results compare with the number reached and
affected by the average commercial
aired on the networks during prime time?
On an overall basis, 44 percent of the
Super Bowl commercials reached and
affected more people than the average
prime-time network commercial, after
allowing for differences in expenditures.
So even though the overall
split is close to 50/50, prime network time is a
slightly better buy. But the
odds change dramatically when you separate Super
Bowl commercials into
those that were only aired on the Super Bowl and those
that received a lot of
additional airings. That turns out to be one of the main
differences
reflected in the two sets of top commercials listed previously. The
first set
with the top recognition scores all had a lot of additional exposure.
The
amount spent to air a commercial has its biggest effect on recognition.
It
accounts for much less of the variation found in the impact advertising
has on
those who notice it. Airing a commercial on the Super Bowl delivers
the largest
possible number of first-time exposures. Spending the same amount
on any other
combination of programs is almost certain to deliver a
substantial number of
people who are seeing the commercial for the second
time or the third time, etc.
As expected, the Super Bowl proves most cost
efficient in reaching men and
sports fans. But it is also more efficient in
reaching college graduates,
professionals and executives, skilled blue-collar
workers and those under 30
than it is in reaching their opposite
counterparts. Fourth: What approaches
worked best? The mood was far more
important than the message, particularly the
humor, uniqueness and the pace.
Their messages were not seen as being nearly as
persuasive, credible or clear
as in the average prime-time network commercial.
Yet these were very
successful commercials, as shown by the above-average impact
on purchasing
interest. Advertising tracking. Once commercials are aired, the
only way to
know if the advertising is working is tracking research. It's the
ultimate
acid test of advertising effectiveness. The tracking questionnaire
A
well-designed advertising tracking questionnaire will be developed
including the
following essential measurements: -- Unaided and aided brand
awareness. The
creation and maintenance of brand awareness is one of the most
fundamental (and
most valuable) goals of advertising. Advertising can be
effective if it does
nothing more than create brand awareness. -- Advertising
message recall. What
messages and ideas from the advertising do consumers
remember? Do the remembered
messages correspond to the advertising messages
that the advertising was
intended to communicate? To ask consumers who are
aware of the advertising
whether the advertising communicated each point.
Advertising message recall is
measured by an open-ended question, to which
respondents give unaided,
spontaneous answers. This question helps determine
if the intended messages are
getting through to consumers. Advertising
message recall also provides an
indication of consumer memory distortion and
learning effects over time. That
is, once a commercial starts running,
consumers do not remember everything in it
equally. Some elements stick in
the memories of consumers, and other elements
fade away. Knowing the elements
that have the highest memory value is of great
benefit in improving future
creative executions. -- Demographics. Key
demographics such as geography,
age, sex, education and income should always be
included. These variables are
extremely valuable in analyzing tracking survey
results and in defining the
optimal target market for a brand. Conclusion What
other event, and what
other medium besides network television could reach 100+
million men, women
and children simultaneously and hold their collective
attention for four
hours? So, despite the rapid emergence of the Internet as an
advertising
medium and ever-declining primetime ratings, network television is
still the
king of all media, at least for event broadcasts.