We mostly focus on startups and let’s be clear that few startups have the budget for a Super Bowl ad. Still, the Tactical Implementation iceberg in the Marketing Ocean is so fraught with challenges that it’s good to look anywhere for clues about what works. And, the Super Bowl is the equivalent to the Olympics when it comes to advertising.
Coming into the 2021 Super Bowl, no one knew what to expect of the ads and advertisers. 2020 was a crazy year. Most NFL teams are still trying to figure out how to best connect with fans. Add to the mayhem, the NFL sold 30,000 cardboard cutouts of fans to place in stadium seats for $100 each, or $3,000,000, to help defray lost ticket sales.
In a typical Super Bowl year, the bulk of advertisers are repeaters with only about 10 first-time advertisers. In 2021, there were 19 first-timers. And the advertisers are usually dominated by cars, movies, beer, sodas and snack. But not in 2021. With few people willing to go to movie theaters, the number of movies ads declined. Instead, Paramount had several ads touting its new streaming service. The only movie ads heralded their streaming releases. There were a number of other brands touting their online services – Rocket Mortgage and Guaranteed Rate, Klarna pay over time, Squarespace websites and Fiverr freelancers to build them, Ship4Payments and Mercari online marketplaces, eTrade and Robinhood, Indeed job hunting, Vroom car buying, and food delivered from DoorDash and Uber Eats. And let’s not forget the tech-enabling products - Amazon’s Alexa, Logitech devices. There were also plenty of choices to make our homes better – Scott’s Miracle Gro, Hellman’s Mayonaise, Dr. Squatch soaps, Tide, Huggies, and even Oatly oat milk. And we still had a few car and beer ads.
There were a couple of notable trends in these Super Bowl offerings that are good advice for any types of promotion:
Use the ad to engage customers beyond the game. These ads cost a lot of money ($5.5 million for 30-seconds). So you have to get more mileage out of them than just the Super Bowl. At least 35 ads were launched online before the game - the best had 65 million views on YouTube, on top of the 100 million Super Bowl watchers. But several brands also used their ad to get people to engage with them online. This is a great idea for any marketing initiative. Invest once and try to leverage that investment as much as possible.
o Scott’s Miracle Gro wanted viewers text to get your dream lawn
o DoorDash offered to send $1.00 to Sesame Street for every order
o Mtn Dew let people count the bottles for a chance at $1 million
o Shift4Shop asked people to go online for a chance to go into space
o Huggies asked consumers to send them pictures of babies born on Super Bowl Sunday
o DraftKings gave people a chance of $1 million
o Jimmy John’s continues the story online
o At halftime Pepsi asked people to scan their Pepsi to get “behind the scenes” content
Show real people being natural. Brands want to connect with people emotionally. There are two main goals of a Super Bowl ad: 1) remind people to buy a well-known brand or 2) show your point of differentiation. With either objective, you have to connect to people’s lives.
o Rocket Mortgage highlights how scary buying a house without the right partner
o M&M’s encourages you to use it to apologize
o Anheuser-Busch tapped into what “Let’s get a beer” means
o Michelob Ultra brings the joy of sports back
o Doritos shows why 3D snacks are better than flat ones
o Tide shows what your (or at least the average teen’s) clothes go through
o Toyota encourages people to overcome challenges
o Guaranteed Rates helps people accomplish their goals
o Indeed shows what a wide variety of job seekers want
o Logitech features a wide variety of creative people
o Bud Light Lemonade Seltzer parodies all the lemons we got in 2020
o WeatherTech highlights the diversity and values of their employees
Leverage the clout of celebrities. A common theme across time is the use of celebrities. This year was no different. Shout out to T-Mobile for their timely use of Celebs to demonstrate their point of differentiation. Also, kudos to Cheetos for tapping into the Mila Kunis-Ashton Kutcher relationship. Of course, this is out of the reach of most startups. Instead, they tend to look for low-cost influencers.
Show support for Small Businesses. This was a new trend as people worry about their local communities. Brands want to be connected to local markets too. DoorDash, Klarna, Fiverr and Verizon all showed how they support local businesses. It never hurts to remind customers about your company’s story.
Tap into nostalgia. A common theme in Super Bowl ads is reminding us of things we already like. This year, we got flashbacks to Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me,” “Wayne’s World,” “9 to 5,” and “Edward Scissorhands.” Look for opportunities to leverage nostalgia as well.
Keep it funny by tapping into humor. Humor can be challenging to pull off. You want to be funny, but not too funny and certainly not creepy. Funny Super Bowl ads are typically at the top of ratings by real consumers on USA Today’s Ad Meter. This year was no exception. Rocket Mortgage’s two ads about being “pretty sure” got the fan favorite nod with first and second place. GM’s “No Way Norway” and Amazon’s “Alexa’s Body” also scored well. You have to really know your customers to know what will make them laugh. But positive emotions are more motivating than negative ones.
We would be remiss without a shout out to Toni Petersson, the CEO of Oatly, for his bravery in representing his company and sharing his ideas about what differentiates his brand. In case you didn’t know, he wrote the “Wow. Wow. No Cow” song himself. Not everybody loved the ad, which the company anticipated. It offered the t-shirt below online for free. It sold out first thing the next day.
You don’t have to buy a Super Bowl ad to create motivating marketing messages. But you do have to know your customers. Tap into the emotions they feel with your brand. Share what they feel with other prospects, and you can navigate the waters of Tactical Implementation.