• by Kendall Allen , February 8, 2010

The Super Bowl frees us up to shamelessly marvel at bigness. Sports fans and those among us with a penchant for big shiny things look forward to the scale of its fanfare, no matter who's playing. Media economists in our midst keep their fingers on the pulse of the big buy -- noting which advertisers are doing what for the big game, and what kind of bellwether that activity might be.

 

But, equally as timeless as all this, is our inner consumer's fascination with the big ads themselves. We expect them to be magnificent. With this year's pre-game stir prompted by CBS's handling of two ads submitted, it all adds up to big sparks.

By the time the Super Bowl coin was tossed, most of us were familiar with the issues in question. The first controversial ad decision was CBS refusing a spot submitted by Mancrunch.com, a new online dating site for gay men. Then there was CBS's parallel choice to air the first-ever advocacy ad, the Pam and Tim Tebow pro-life spot, created, produced and submitted by Focus on the Family. The first ad was playful and promotional, while the second took a more serious tone to its theme. But, both judgment calls by CBS drew fire. And, depending on who you were  talking to, both ads were advocacy ads.

Larry King hosted two conversations on February 1 that stoked these fires. The first was between Mancrunch's Domenic Friesen, syndicated talk show host Dennis Prager, and Donny Deutsch, in which the guests debated various aspects of CBS's not-to-air decision. King showed a clip, and the Mancrunch spot also circulated online for days. The conversation flipped between a debate on censorship, advocacy and capitalism, and another on mass vs. targeted media buying. Then there was Deutsch's "media targeting" narrative, in which he asserted that buying mass was not the right tack for targeting the Mancrunch demographic to spread like wildfire across all media channels.

Next up, on the matter of the ad that would air, it was fascinating to listen to Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, take on Jim Daly, president & CEO of Focus on The Family, debating the Focus on The Family ad somewhat in the abstract. Of those present, only Daly had seen the ad; he described it, asking Terry and the viewing audience to use their imaginations. This ad was more clearly advocacy -- but its approach and tone would remain to be seen.

So, having watched both these conversations and read other coverage prior to the game, I was curious about how the Tebow spot would play its hand, heavy or light. It was ultimately... whatever.

Listening to this cacophony of content and community, old-school radio show lightning rods, self-styled media pundits, and special-interest advocates on two ends of the spectrum, all at once -- it was kind of a mess. A few more thoughts:

-      Conversations about neutrality, censorship, freedom of speech and capitalism do not mix with media planning & buying banter. If one tries to do so, one's media-speak may sound even more ridiculous. Have the conversation that's at hand, and don't hide behind the media-speak.

-      Creative execution depends on a mix of concept, theme, message and treatment. Very subjective. It's amazing what an impact creative execution can have on the clarity and directness of an advocacy message. And -- by extension -- how much room it can give for interpretation on what constitutes advocacy messaging.

Seems like heady stuff for the Super Bowl; seems like heady stuff for a very tan Donny Deutsch. But, with our media distribution and consumption channels becoming vaster, more robust and enabled year over year -- I'd expect the struggle over advocacy ads to mass audiences to get even trickier over time.