my turn

Commentary

... And There's A Ball Game, Too

Everyone is preparing for this Sunday. Yes, folks, it’s that time of year again: the anniversary of the death of Pope Pius XI and the birth of Eubie Blake, traditionally celebrated in tandem — saxophones and hair shirts. Advertisers are spending millions to celebrate with ads set to air during a nationally televised football game. I’ll be munching a capon’s leg and humming “Charleston Rag.”

But forget the oblong-ball tossing, the real game is the lineup of $5 million-per-throw Hail Mary tosses. And those of us who have to write about that show are looking for some sexy numbers.

Here’s one: only 39% of Super Bowl 50’s advertisers will score big on their Super Bowl investments. This is from Brand Keys’ 14th annual Super Bowl Ad Engagement Survey. It’s based on assessments collected via mobile software from a national sample of 3,800 male and female Super Bowl viewers, all of them category and brand users.

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Robert Passikoff, founder and president of the firm, stating the obvious, notes that … well, it’s obvious, so I won’t restate it. Stuff about audience size, passion, social media. All the stuff you’ll be reciting in your sleep by Saturday night, whilst your spouse is on the phone with your psychiatrist.

Speaking of, here’s a good one, once told by David Bowie, whose song “Star Man” is the track for an Audi commercial during the game (It’s a good ad, by the way. Kudos to VB&P): a psychic and a psychiatrist pass each other on the street. Says the psychic, “You’re fine, how am I?”

Passikoff notes that the competition is moving the teaser action further and further into January, and into last year, in some cases. That will be old news. I happen to have a scoop: you will begin to see teasers for next year’s Super Bowl ads in the fourth quarter of this year’s game. Seriously.

Brand Keys data suggests some brands should hope for a big ROI. In its survey data, consumers rated only 13 of the 33 brands in this year’s study as both engaging and entertaining. That ratio is, per the firm, lower than the 13-year historical average of 49%. The winners are Amazon Echo, Butterfinger, Doritos, Hyundai, Kia, Mountain Dew, PayPal, Pokémon, Skittles, Snickers, Taco Bell, Toyota and WeatherTech.

Daily brand consumer perception service YouGov BrandIndex, which polled some 2,000 adults over the past four weeks, says Doritos, in its “Crash The Super Bowl” campaign, gained the most positive consumer perception since New Year’s Day. Kia, Hyundai (the former has tapped Christopher Walken, the latter Ryan Reynolds), and Skittles candy were right behind.

Heading into Sunday’s game, Toyota has the highest perception levels, followed by Honda, Paypal, Snickers and LG.

Passikoff makes a nice point about the difference between entertainment and engagement when he says that tweeting and “liking” is nice, but if all of that doesn’t equate to emotional brand engagement, “you’ve produced is a very short, very expensive movie!”

YouGov also finds that, basically, all of the beverage brands were less than scintillating to consumers. That means Bud Light, Budweiser, Coca-Cola, Michelob, Pepsi and Shock Top. Even though I, personally, have nothing against Shock Top. I plan to start on my stash at around 8 a.m. Sunday. Cheers to Prius IV and Pius XI.

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