By all accounts, 2013 was not the best year for Super Bowl commercials. It’s not as if they were not funny or creative. They were just the same old thing re-hashed once again. The Doritos commercials were over-the-top absurd. GoDaddy.com had its not-so-subtle sexual overtones ad. Ho hum. We have seen it all before. I found that by the end of the first quarter I was ready to go back for more guacamole and chips during the commercials. That is not exactly what the advertisers had in mind when they paid $3.8 million for those spots. They hoped I would remain in my seat riveted to the TV.
Two ad spots that I thought were head and shoulders above the rest bucked the notion that Super Bowl ads had to do mini-comedies to be successful. The two that really caught my attention were the Budweiser "Clydesdale Brotherhood” ad and the Dodge Ram "God Made a Farmer” ad. According to the post-game advertising analysis web sites I have looked at, these two made everyone’s top five. Why did we pay attention to these ads and scorned the rest? There are some very simple, but profound reasons that you should make part of your advertising efforts.
Reason #1: They were different from the rest
These ads stood out from the run-of-the-mill funny ads. Humor is a great tool to use in marketing if you use it correctly. (See my article Make me laugh.) But when everyone else is doing humor, how will you stand out from the crowd? In a typical Super Bowl broadcast, there are 70 thirty-second spots. If there is one ridiculous comedy routine after another, what are your chances of being remembered? The point of advertising is to make you stand out from the crowd, not blend in with it. You will be much more memorable in your target market’s eyes if you do something totally different than your competition.
Reason #2: They appealed to a different emotion
Emotional appeal is at the heart of getting people to pay attention to your advertising. (See the article Marketing Mood.) These two ads appealed to sentimentality in people. It tugged at your heart, maybe made you wipe away a tear, and left you with feelings of pride. Now, if you are anything like me, you don’t really have any connections with farmers or anyone who raises Clydesdale horses. It doesn’t matter. We transfer their storyline to be our own and we can relate to the plight of the hard working person in the story. This is called empathy: we feel their emotions. Whenever you can tell your story and get your target market to have empathy for you, you have done your job in marketing. These two ads told a very simple story. Within seconds, they had us transferring empathy for the characters in the storyline. You can do the same thing with the marketing of your company. The story could have been about a teacher trying to get students to learn and having a sudden breakthrough with one student. It could have been about a firefighter who injures his leg but still finds a child in a burning building and brings them to safety. It could be about a soldier, a nurse, a truck driver, a steel worker, a waitress, a paperboy, etc. We long to make heroes of the hard working and the underdogs in this world. When the story is told with empathetic connection in mind, we suddenly are overwhelmed with emotion and cannot help but have good feelings for the person in the story… and the company associated with them. Keep that in mind when you are telling your own story.
Reason #3: They subtly beat their competition
In those feel good moments, both Budweiser and Dodge clobbered their competition. You might not have recognized this because it happened subtly. They used very different methods, but it happened nonetheless. Let me explain. The Clydesdale horses have been a well-established brand of Budweiser since 1933. You cannot hear the word "Clydesdale” without thinking of Budweiser. This is not so with their competition. For instance, I don’t think of Coors every time I see a photo of a snow-covered mountain or a train. Both are part of the Coors brand. I don’t think of Miller Genuine Draft every time I see a flying bald eagle like the one that tops the MGD logo. The Budweiser Clydesdales are on an entirely different level than other brands. What is the point of branding? It is to get us to remember the company or the product that is being advertised and have good feelings about them. How many ads do you watch and a minute later you are wondering what or who they were advertising? The Clydesdales are there to make sure we don’t forget Budweiser. The Clydesdales have made a lot of Super Bowl ads over the years to help us remember who they represent. How did this year’s ad pass by those old ads? Anheuser-Busch, Budweiser’s parent company, engaged their audience through social media networks to name the foal in the ad. (The horse has been named Hope.) They received 60,000 tweets after the game. Many of them were children taken in by the storyline. By allowing the online naming of the colt, Budweiser just firmed up their brand with a whole new generation of future customers, many of them not yet of legal age to consume the product, but definitely sold on the brand. It will be interesting to see what they do with Hope the Clydesdale in the near future.
Dodge took a little different tactic in beating their competition, but gained the same results. They took an old address the late radio commentator, Paul Harvey, gave at a Future Farmers of America (FFA) convention and placed it over stark photos of American farmers. It was simple. There was no brand identification until the end of the commercial when the text across the screen reads "To the farmer in all of us. Guts, Glory, Ram.” Dodge announced that it would make a contribution to the FFA - up to $1 million - for viewing the ad on their web site and sharing it. Dodge is in a competitive market for working trucks that pits them against GM brands (GMC and Chevy), Ford, and Toyota. What the Dodge Ram ad did was more than conjure up some sentimental feelings. They made an appeal to a new generation of farmers with that $1 million donation to the FFA. After watching that ad, who wouldn’t be for supporting the next generation of farmers? They drove people to their web site to make sure the donation "clicks” were made. When you get to the site, you will see their ads for the "2013 Year of the Farmer” campaign. In other words, the "God Made a Farmer” ad is just the open door to further engage their target market and to get them interactive with their products, establish brand identity – tying their trucks directly with farming – and getting them to search out information on Dodge Trucks. While the competitions’ ads are merely 30 second spots, the Dodge ad is still living through clicks and shares and taking masses of people to their web site. Ingenious!
When you are advertising to your target market, look for ways to not only stand out from the pack, but also look for ways to engage your market beyond just the short moment that advertising affords you. Appeal to emotion. Use that engagement to drive them to more exposure – through your web site, social media, or just sitting down for a cup of coffee with you. Build your brand through that engagement. Leave them with good feelings about your company and its products. Marketing is meant to open doors. Don’t let the ad be the end of that process, but just the beginning.
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Super Bowl Commercials 2013: Ads That Stole the Show on Super Sunday, by Justin Onslow, Bleacherreport.com, February 5, 2013
Clydesdale Commercial: Budweiser Foal In 2013 Super Bowl Ad Named 'Hope', by Jim Saltar, Huffington Post, February 5, 2013