Audi, Acura, Hyundai, Kia, Chevrolet, Lexus, Cadillac, Chrysler, Volkswagen, Suzuki, Honda (putatively with a "Ferris Bueller"- themed ad complete with Mathew Broderick) and Toyota are the automakers in the Super Bowl this year. Many have already shown bits and pieces of their creative, and some already have their ads on social video channels. Hyundai until now has been mum on its creative, saying that the ads will take a new direction less focused on establishing the brand's bona fides and more on entertaining. While in the past Hyundai has tended to hammer home messages about vehicle durability and reliability, and also (during the recession) programs like Hyundai Assurance, the automaker is doing more humorous creative this time. The two ads for the Veloster Turbo, as well as a brand advertisement right before kickoff, all use humor to get the message across. For the latter, a 60-second spot in the ad pod shoe-horned right before kickoff, the company is doing a slightly more offbeat approach than what it did in last year's game: feature real employees at its Montgomery, Ala. assembly plant for the Sonata sedan. This year the ad shows that facility and its people, but they are in an absurd elaboration of Hyundai's take on "If at first you don't succeed... ." In the ad, via Innocean Americas, a designer is struggling to solve a tricky design point on a Hyundai vehicle when his supervisor shows up at his cubicle. Instead of words of encouragement, the guy begins humming the theme from “Rocky.” Then other employees in the office take up the song, and then all of the people in the assembly plant start humming it as they build Sonatas. Soon everyone is singing the theme, marching out of the plant, into the offices and surrounding the guy, who after hearing the anthem says he'll give it another shot. One of the two in-game Veloster Turbo ads posits a race between a cheetah and the Veloster Turbo. It shows the car on a desert highway, sere mountains in the distance. Beside the car and its driver is a cheetah in a cage, and beside the cage, the cat's handler. As the car takes off down the road, the handler opens the door to the cage and the cat leaps after the car. The car is way too fast, so after a futile second or two chasing the car, the cat gives up, and turns to look at the trainer, growling. The latter's expression changes to one of consternation, then terror as the cat decides he's an easier meal target. As Hyundai's voiceover guy, actor Jeff Bridges extols the virtues of the car we see the handler run back and forth, chased hither and yon by the cat. The third spot is meant to tout the turbo Veloster's low-end torque in forward and reverse. A young man is driving with his much older colleague on a business trip as the older guy is telling the young man the secret to success, for the millionth time. But before he can tell the young driver that secret word, he has what looks to be a minor cardiovascular event or stroke (if such a thing can be minor). The young guy handles it by quickly throwing the car into reverse, then forward, then reverse again a few times until the old guy is shaken out of his -- whatever it is he's in. Humor is, of course, stock in trade for Super Bowl ads, and almost all of the automakers except (so far) for Cadillac are going for the funny bone to some extent. Kia, in a racetrack themed ad, is channeling male and female fantasies in an ad for the Optima sedan starring everyone from Mötley Crüe to mixed- martial arts star Chuck Liddell and a Victoria's Secret supermodel. Audi's Super Bowl ad offers a take on hip young party vampires at a cookout, and their friend arriving in an Audi with the drinks, a container of type-O blood. Unfortunately, the car's headlights are so strong, they evaporate the lot of them. And sibling VW is back with the “Star Wars” theme. Honda, rumor has it, is doing a "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"-themed ad starring -- yes -- Matthew Broderick, except grown up and playing hooky from work. Tim Calkins, professor of marketing at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, tells Marketing Daily that while the automotive segment tends to change its Super Bowl creative themes every year (although there are exceptions), there will be a lot of thematic repeats. "I think this year what we will notice is how familiar the commercials are and how much continuity there is from one year to the next," he says. For the past seven years, Calkins has run a sort of ersatz focus group at Kellogg involving marketing students who watch the big game and evaluate the ads therein based on strategic criteria. They will do the same this year for Super Bowl XLVI. Calkins says the yearly confab judges ads based on positioning (where there's a benefit delivered by being in the Super Bowl); the strength of the link between creative and product; whether the ad has enough "amplification" to stay top of mind; and whether the ad is consistent with the brand. "We will see a lot of similar campaigns again: CareerBuilder with chimps, the Coca-Cola bears, goDaddy.com, Doritos. What's happening is the branding is difficult and when people get equity that works, they reinforce it," he says. "The risk profile is so high in the Super Bowl that when advertisers find a formula, they stick with it."
One of the original big-ticket branded entertainment-connected TV shows, "Celebrity Apprentice" has announced a new slate of in-show sponsors: food company Kraft, drug retailer, Walgreens and confectionary brand M&Ms.NBC has also announced some of last season's -- General Motors, Good Sam, and Farouk Hair Systems -- will be making a return for the show. Now in its 12th edition, it premieres on Sunday, Feb. 19. Other season sponsors this year include Entertainment.com, Ivanka Trump Collection, O-Cedarand Five Star Fragrance.Major marketers have played a large part in the content of each episode -- especially when it comes to in-show marketing challenges. Early on "The Apprentice," the original title of the series, had a price tag of around $2 million to $3 million for a single branded entertainment deal for each episode. While media buyers say the price tag has dropped -- as have the ratings -- the show has remained an effective market tool.Last season's finalists, John Rich and Marlee Matlin, won for a '70s and '80s retro for 7UP. Winning celebrities will get $250,000 to give to charity.Through the show's 11 seasons, other brands on the show have included Best Buy, Burger King, Dove, Domino’s Pizza, Dairy Queen, The Dial Corporation, Home Depot, Kodak, Lexus, Microsoft, Nestle, Outback Steakhouse, Procter & Gamble, Staples, Pontiac, Pedigree, Priceline.com, Right Guard, Rockport, Snapple and Unilever.Donald J. Trump, host and executive producer of the show, stated: "'The Celebrity Apprentice’ proves that between our fantastic cast and the creative tasks they participate in, the show offers an extraordinary value for our partners.”
Several -- maybe just about all -- advertisers in major media events like the Super Bowl are augmenting their major media commitments with the kind of digital integration that begs the question: can people do more while watching the game -- or any TV show -- than eat nachos and drink beer? Specifically, can they be digital multitaskers? An affirmative answer is more likely to happen among Internet-savvy Hispanics, according to the LMX Hispanic study, a yearly poll of 2000 U.S. Hispanic digital respondents by Ipsos MediaCT. Ipsos defines "Hispanic digitals" as those with some degree of online access they can have anywhere -- which is a pretty broad definition. The study focused on a cohort of English-dominant, bilingual and Spanish-dominant consumers, garnered from online and in-person interviews. Once chosen, the subjects kept 24-hour media and activities diaries and usage and attitudes modules. The study found that digital Hispanics now spend 42% of their media time multitasking, meaning they are more likely than the general population to do things like combine TV viewing with online behavior. The study also finds that most of Hispanics' online usage occurs around social networking, and that Hispanics spend 12 minutes more per day multitasking than the general population. Within the Hispanic Web-savvy demographic, those who are bilingual and Spanish-dominant are more likely than English-dominant digital Hispanics to engage in social networking. And according to Ipsos, 80% of Hispanics who are active with digital technology are also a member of a social network, with 90% of those connecting weekly, and 60% checking in daily. The researchers also found that half of digital Hispanic video viewers use two screens to view video media, while about 10% use three. And while most video viewing among Hispanics is still dominated by TV, digital Hispanics use alternative TV and video channels a little more than the general online population. The firm says 85% of digital Hispanics view video on a TV, 51% on a TV and computer and only 8% on a TV and computer and smartphone.
Less programming usually means more viewers -- especially for sports and reality shows. ESPN is reporting that, through 14 NBA games, its total viewers are up 21%, to 2.1 million. And its numbers are 31% higher among 18-49ers -- a 1.7 average rating so far. The NBA, in the midst of a shortened season, seems to have pushed viewers to climb on board for what has been called a "sprint" finish. All of which reminds us of other stuff that may run longer than it should. "The Biggest Loser" has been holding down the fort for NBC over the last few years, doing all kinds of work with multiple programs and nights, and with many two-hour episodes. All that has meant some wear and tear on the show. Mind you, some networks have gone this route before. Think back a decade or more when ABC ran "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" almost every weekday night, giving the network a sharp short-term spike in which it won a rare 18-49 viewer crown. Then it came crashing down to earth, bringing the network down with it. It was too much, too long, and created viewer fatigue. In some ways, you can understand why the NFL works so well opposed to other sports -- especially ones with extensive numbers of post-season games. Just 16 NFL regular season games means more value for viewers and fans. Years ago, there was much talk that "American Idol" should try to run two seasons a year -- especially in what seemed to be the much more important big fall premiere period. Turns out Fox made the right decision, keeping it just to the spring, making it seem more special. Of course, this doesn't work for everything. The scarcity of, say, AMC's "Mad Men" over the last few seasons didn’t really give it a sizable bump in viewership when it returned to the air. If "Men" were more consistent -- as well as running a broadcast network-sized schedule of 22 episodes a year, rather than the typical cable slate of 13 -- that would be worse. In general, networks should give viewers what they want -- which usually means a lot less.
“Average is over,” Thomas Friedman wrote last Wednesday in the New YorkTimes, and it may well have been the headline of the week. In sports, politics, business, and the movies, we learned this week -- in case we didn’t already know -- that there is no longer room in our world for mediocrity. Consider the evidence. Yesterday’s epic tennis match between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal was a testament to the adage that the best athletes on the best stage leave it all on the court. And last Sunday, we saw two great quarterbacks -- Tom Brady and Eli Manning --lead their teams to a spot in Super Bowl XLVI. With the Pats leading by only three points late in the game, Brady threw a deep bomb when a more conservative quarterback would have played it safe. The pass was intercepted in the end zone in spectacular fashion by the Ravens, but the message was clear -- Brady was playing to win. On the opposite coast, Manning was knocked down time after time but still threw the ball more than 50 times in a heavy rain. Again -- playing to win. Two days later, Newt Gingrich upended expectations to take the South Carolina primary. He had gone on the offensive and gave the race his all; it paid off. In contrast, Newt’s opponent Mitt Romney had been playing not to lose. The result? He lost. Now, with the Florida primary upon us, Romney has changed his tack and stopped playing not to lose. Of course, whether that’ll win him the nomination remains to be seen. Note that Gingrich might be playing to win, but he doesn’t always follow the rules, and ultimately you can’t win if you’ve got too many personal fouls. As he himself said in 1997, “I brought down on the people's house a controversy which could weaken the faith people have in their government.” And then there’s a message we can take away from the movies we watch. Some merely entertain, but some inspire. Take “The Grey,” a well-reviewed Liam Neeson film about man vs. nature, which opened last week. Without giving anything away, I can tell you that the movie’s message was “play to win, live for today, die another day.” Sounds familiar. So how does this translate to the television industry? Don’t aim for the middle anymore; there is no middle. Time was, Friedman noted in his op- ed, a fellow could get a good-enough education, land a good-enough job, and make a decent living. Not anymore. These days, workers require specialized skills to survive in an increasingly automated marketplace. And companies need to stay flexible and respond to customers’ needs in order to stay relevant in a fast-changing landscape. In his column, Friedman made a reference to the modern textile mill, whose staff numbers two: a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog, and the dog is there to keep the man away from the machinery. As we saw in the Times’ eye-opening report last Sunday on Apple’s manufacturing in China, our factories do not hold the future of the American economy. The lesson? Innovate or perish. And this extends to our business of television. In the increasingly competitive environment we inhabit, none of us can afford to be on the defensive. Only those of us who play to win will survive the paradigm shift that’s already underway – from analog to digital, and media buying based on stale age/sex demos to buying on the basis of accountability. Generally speaking, large companies play not to lose. They have to: Often, they’re not agile enough to respond to market changes in a timely and strategic fashion. They often hold long-term contracts with clients, and so have a vested interest in protecting the status quo. We’ve got our Gingrichs in the industry, too -- the ones who play to win, but can’t follow the rules. You can count the phone hackers, trade-secret thieves and the patent infringers among them. But as television becomes more challenging, and as Big Data and analytics empowers brands with choice and accountability, our customers will demand authentic innovation, responsiveness, and specialization. So are you ready to answer the call? Are you going to play to win? Because if you aren’t, it’s time to move on. There will be many stories in 2012 to inspire -- from next week’s Super Bowl to the Olympics and the Presidential elections beyond. Play hard, play fair, or go home.
According to the Kantar Media database, in the last 10 years the Super Bowl game has generated $1.72 billion of network advertising sales from more than 125 marketers. The top five Super Bowl advertisers of the past 10 years have spent $636.6 million on advertising during the game, accounting for 37% of total advertising revenue. Top Five Super Bowl Advertisers 2002-2011AdvertiserYears In-Game AdsAd Spend Million $ Anheuser-Busch 10 $239 PepsiCo 10 174 GM 8 83 Disney 10 74 Coke 5 67 Source: Kantar Media, January, 2012 The average rate for a 30-second advertisement in the Super Bowl has increased by 40% during the past decade, reaching $3.1 million last year. Higher pricing is expected for the 2012 game with NBC claiming a sticker price of $3.5 million for a 30-second unit. Super Bowl Ad Rates and Spending (Ad Spend Million$)YearAvg. Cost/30 Sec x000Total Ad Spend 2006 $2,500 $163 2007 2 385 152 2008 2,700 186 2009 3,000 213 2010 2,974 205 2011 3,100 228 Source: Kantar Media, January, 2012 Over the past ten years, the volume of commercial time in the game has been edging upwards even as the price of advertising has become more expensive. The Fox telecast of the 2011 Super Bowl contained 46 minutes, 10 seconds of network ads, the second largest amount in history. Network TV Commercials in Super BowlYearAd Time (mm:ss)# of Commercials 2006 44:15 92 2007 43:05 92 2008 45:10 84 2009 45:10 84 2010 47:50 104 2011 46:10 96 Source: Kantar Media, January, 2012 A significant proportion of advertisers opt to spend extra by running longer length commercials in an effort to further engage viewers and boost return on investment. In each of the past four years, there have been at least ten advertisements of 60 seconds or longer. By comparison, the normal proportion of long form ads on a broadcast network is about 6%. Ads Of 60+ Seconds in Super Bowl Year Total Ads % of All Ads 2007 7 13% 2008 13 23 2009 13 23 2010 11 18 2011 10 16 Source: Kantar Media, January, 2012 Typically, about 20% of the Super Bowl ad lineup is composed of first- time advertisers. In 2011 the proportion dropped to 14% as only four marketers made their debut, the fewest since 2003. Three marketers have publicly confirmed their first-time participation for the 2012 game: Century 21, Dannon and the movie studio Relativity Media. The flow of first-time advertisers has produced a parallel trend: an expanding parade of small marketers who invest a hefty chunk of their annual budget in the Super Bowl. In 2011, nearly one-third of the Super Bowl advertisers put more than 10% of their full-year media budgets into the game. Advertisers Investing More Than 10% Of Annual Media Budget in Super BowlYearTotal Advertisers% of All Advertisers 2007 5 17% 2008 4 12 2009 7 23 2010 13 33 2011 9 31 Source: Kantar Media, January, 2012 Over the past decade, the Super Bowl has attracted a bevy of different movie studio, automotive and dot-com companies, making these the most populous and competitive ad categories. Competitive message clutter within the motion picture sector is more severe than the table implies because studios habitually use their inventory to promote multiple films. Last year, there were ads for ten different films. Super Bowl Advertisers by CategoryYearTotal AdvertisersDotComMotion PicturesAuto Mfg 2007 30 6 3 3 2008 33 5 6 4 2009 30 9 4 3 2010 39 6 3 4 2011 29 6 4 6 Source: Kantar Media, January, 2012 The 2011 Super Bowl smashed all records for auto manufacturer advertising with a staggering $77.5 million spent on 18 messages for nine different brands. The 2012 game will have another glut of car ads. Based on corporate announcements, at least eight different auto nameplates will go head-to-head. Super Bowl Auto AdvertisingYearTotal Auto Ad Spend (MM)Total Ad time (mm:ss)Brands 2007 $21.5 3:50 4 2008 21.6 4:00 4 2009 18.0 3:00 3 2010 29.7 5:00 6 2011 77.5 12:30 9 Source: Kantar Media, January, 2012 Major League Baseball’s World Series and the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship are two other high profile sporting events that attract significant interest from TV advertisers. But how do these compare to the Super Bowl in terms of ad spend? Major Sporting Championships Network Ad Revenue ($MM)YearSuper BowlWorld Series (games)NCAA Mens BB Final Four (games) 2007 $152 $157 (4) $168 (3) 2008 186 176(5) 178(3) 2009 213 224(6) 163(3) 2010 205 191(5) 177(3) 2011 228 269(&) 170(3) Source: Kantar Media, January, 2012 For more information about Kantar Media, please go here.