Super Bowl advertising: What really works? Introduction. 1. Introduction. Once ayear almost the entire U.
S. population sits down to watch the same program, theSuper Bowl. But they are also watching scores of brand new commercials. Thecommercials they are watching are produced by the best and the brightest in thebusiness using immense amounts of money. At a record average of $2.
2 milliondollars per 30-second spot, 25 percent more than 1999 commercial spots, eachcommercial is very special or at least should be.( ) Research shows that Superbowl commercials are recalled at more than double the rate of commercials runduring "normal" prime time programming. ( ) And with 58 commercialsscheduled, it's important to be special, creative, and original. It would be acolossal waste of money, after all, if viewers turned sponsors' shill time intoopportunities for refrigerator runs and bathroom breaks.
The Superbowl ads cost$165 million dollars to make and then display. ( ) ABC estimated 130,745,000people watched the game, making it the fifth-biggest audience for any TVtelecast. 1999's Super bowl game, broadcast by Fox, was watched by 127.5million. ( ) Commercials aired during the Super Bowl can generate almost as muchattention as the football itself. If the game fails to be comparative early on,there can be significant fall off in viewers.
Advertisers whose commercials airin the fourth quarter of a lopsided game can take as much of beating as thelosing team. The reverse also can be true, however. If the game is close, no onewill be going anywhere and more people will view the commercials. Purpose forthe study.
The purpose of this study is to determine whether or not it isfinancially feasible for Super Bowl advertisers to pay high cost commercialsspots shown during the prime time. The Super Bowl telecast typically attractsthe biggest TV audience of the year and it has become a showcase for advertisingas well, allowing the network that carries it to charge seemingly endlesslyescalating prices. To millions of people, half the fun of watching the SuperBowl is the commercials. But do people really pay attention to what isadvertised 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 duringfuture Super bowl events. Advertising companies can utilize this study toevaluate the effectiveness upon the audience. II. Methodology. People can forgetadvertising very rapidly.
So we will wait a week or two before checking to seeif commercials are still having a measurable effect on them. When we contactthem we want to use something that gets through to virtually everybody,everywhere, on the first try. With today's busy lifestyles, voice mail andanswering machines, the telephone will not be the method of choice. We will dothis type of ad tracking by reaching all types of people everywhere, and wewanted the number who decline to participate to be as small as possible. We willaccomplish all these objectives by mailing questionnaires to a nationwide sampledrawn from all households for which an address is available from either an autoregistration or a telephone listing, six days after the Super Bowl.
First: Howmany noticed the commercials? Recognition provides the best measure ofintrusiveness because it is the most accurate, complete and reliable measure ofthe number that noticed the commercial. It separates the people who noticed acommercial from those who ignored it, or were never exposed to it, so we can seeif it had any effect on them. It shows if the communication process had a chanceto start. We will also look at a key measure of the information communicated bythe commercials. How many remembered who they were for? Some commercials forjeans and credit cards did an excellent job getting noticed but not in gettingthe 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 -- likabilityand diagnostics. However, if people like a commercial but can't remember who itwas for, it can't have an effect on sales. So, we combine the two in our secondbasic measure of advertising's impact: the percent of recognizers that knew whoit was for and liked it.
Third: What gives the most bang per buck? How do theseresults compare with the number reached and affected by the average commercialaired on the networks during prime time? On an overall basis, 44 percent of theSuper Bowl commercials reached and affected more people than the averageprime-time network commercial, after allowing for differences in expenditures.So even though the overall split is close to 50/50, prime network time is aslightly better buy. But the odds change dramatically when you separate SuperBowl commercials into those that were only aired on the Super Bowl and thosethat received a lot of additional airings. That turns out to be one of the maindifferences reflected in the two sets of top commercials listed previously. Thefirst 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. Itaccounts for much less of the variation found in the impact advertising has onthose who notice it. Airing a commercial on the Super Bowl delivers the largestpossible number of first-time exposures. Spending the same amount on any othercombination of programs is almost certain to deliver a substantial number ofpeople 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 andsports fans. But it is also more efficient in reaching college graduates,professionals and executives, skilled blue-collar workers and those under 30than it is in reaching their opposite counterparts.
Fourth: What approachesworked best? The mood was far more important than the message, particularly thehumor, uniqueness and the pace. Their messages were not seen as being nearly aspersuasive, credible or clear as in the average prime-time network commercial.Yet these were very successful commercials, as shown by the above-average impacton purchasing interest. Advertising tracking. Once commercials are aired, theonly way to know if the advertising is working is tracking research.
It's theultimate acid test of advertising effectiveness. The tracking questionnaire Awell-designed advertising tracking questionnaire will be developed including thefollowing essential measurements: -- Unaided and aided brand awareness. Thecreation and maintenance of brand awareness is one of the most fundamental (andmost valuable) goals of advertising. Advertising can be effective if it doesnothing more than create brand awareness. -- Advertising message recall. Whatmessages and ideas from the advertising do consumers remember? Do the rememberedmessages correspond to the advertising messages that the advertising wasintended to communicate? To ask consumers who are aware of the advertisingwhether the advertising communicated each point.
Advertising message recall ismeasured by an open-ended question, to which respondents give unaided,spontaneous answers. This question helps determine if the intended messages aregetting through to consumers. Advertising message recall also provides anindication of consumer memory distortion and learning effects over time. Thatis, once a commercial starts running, consumers do not remember everything in itequally.
Some elements stick in the memories of consumers, and other elementsfade away. Knowing the elements that have the highest memory value is of greatbenefit in improving future creative executions. -- Demographics. Keydemographics such as geography, age, sex, education and income should always beincluded.
These variables are extremely valuable in analyzing tracking surveyresults and in defining the optimal target market for a brand. Conclusion Whatother event, and what other medium besides network television could reach 100+million men, women and children simultaneously and hold their collectiveattention for four hours? So, despite the rapid emergence of the Internet as anadvertising medium and ever-declining primetime ratings, network television isstill the king of all media, at least for event broadcasts.
