Message from Michael -- Super Bowl Special -- February 7, 2011

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        February 7, 2011

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

      A SPECIAL REPORT – THE SUPER BOWL – RATINGS MADNESS

 

 

      MOST VIEWED VERSUS HIGHEST RATED:  First, as you’ve no doubt heard, and as many predicted, this Super Bowl is officially the most watched television program of all time with an average of 111 Million viewers… five Million more than last year’s game, which took over the top viewing spot from the previous viewing champion – the final episode of M-A-S-H.  Nielsen officials say each of the last six Super Bowl games have increased the numbers over the previous year’s game.  The numbers also translated into several other records.  A record 163 Million viewers watched at least part of the game – up 9 Million from last year.  And, with an average of just under 101 Million viewers during the night, Fox became the first network to top the 100 Million mark during a prime time telecast.  Okay, now, for a little perspective.  This year’s game had an average 46 Rating and 69 Share, which is not the highest rating.  It ‘only’ tied the 1996 game in terms of Ratings.  That game, Super Bowl XXX  is ‘only’ ranked number six in total viewers with an average of 94 Million.  BTW, the teams in that game?  The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Dallas Cowboys. 

      FOOTBALL ANALOGIES FOR ADVERTISERS:  The people behind the Bud Light spot about the dog sitter party scored a touchdown on a punt return, while the people behind the Stella Artois spot were intercepted on the first down.  The people behind the VW Passat spot about the young Darth Vader not only scored a touchdown, but they made a two-point conversion as well, while the people behind the Mini Cooper spot fumbled the ball on the 20-yard line.  And the people behind the Chrysler spot about Detroit with Eminem may have been playing some Zen-level of football while the people behind the Hyundai Elantra spot were playing touch football in comparison.  Some of the Super Bowl advertisers could take a lesson from Vince Lombardi who did not say “winning is the only thing” but who did say, “perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” In the $3 Million-a-Spot race to achieve excellence in advertising in Sunday night’s Super Bowl, there were 91 contestants, according to Fox Sports, 52 according to USA Today.

      J.R. Burningham’s Excellent Adventure.  The 31-year-old part-time website designer from Salt Lake City caught excellence with his home-made $500 spot for Doritos featuring a chip-chasing Pug.  His spot tied for first place in the USA Today Ad Meter survey of Super Bowl spots, with perennial winner and major spender Budweiser’s Bud Light Dog Sitter Party ad.  And setting another record, this is the first time there were co-winners in the USA Today survey.  Both spots were also the top vote getters in the FoxSports online survey.  And because he scored number one on the USA Today Ad Meter, Burningham also got a Million dollars for his trouble.  The second of the Dorito’s consumer-created ads, the Healing Chip, also scored well, with a number four spot in the USA Today survey and number six in the FoxSports survey.  Dorito’s third ad, the finger licking, was nowhere to be found in any of the surveys.  It only showed up in critics’ reviews, with such comments as those of the New York Daily News’s David Hinckley who said it may be the “creepiest spot in Super Bowl history.”  That’s doubly interesting when you consider that it was picked from thousands of ads submitted by, and voted on, by consumers.  Burningham’s mother, by the way, is quoted by KSL.com as saying she was elated because her son had mortgaged himself “to the hilt with student loans” pursuing the dream of producing movies.

As a point of clarification, the FoxSports survey had several categories – Most Viewed, Best, Worst, Most Good Votes, Most Bad Votes.  So, although the Pug and Dog Sitter ads had the most good votes, the ad that actually won the title of Best was the Bridgestone Beaver Karma ad with a score of 97, followed by VW’s Darth Vader ad, one point behind at 96.  The ad came in 9^th on the USA Today survey, but has been generating a lot of, lot of, lot of good reviews from critics and bloggers around the country.  It apparently touched a well spring of feeling.      

The Mini Cooper ad was USA Today’s lowest scoring ad, along with Stella Artois, GoDaddy’s Danic Patrick, and Hyundai’s Elantra advertisements.  The Mini and Hyundai ads also scored as the “worst” in the FoxSports survey.  Other low scorers in the FoxSports survey were the Ford Focus, Castrol, Lowes and Subway along with Chatter.com with Will.I.Am, which had two versions – a 15-second and 30-second spot… both of which stunk, according to the survey.  

      ANOTHER LOMBARDI QUOTE:  He also said, “winning is not a sometime thing… it’s an all time thing.”  A quote that could be applied to the advertising world’s semi-recent discovery of social media and its ability to make a small, but expensive, win on air, into a big, and less expensive, win on line.  VW’s young Darth Vader ad is the highest rate ad for a car since..the Nissan ad in the 1996 game.  More importantly, maybe, the ad has scored an incredible 13 Million views online.  As the head of the Advertising and Public Relations department here at the Grady College of Journalism noted in an email exchange, people are passing the ad around to friends and family, giving it multiple exposures… all for free.  Department head Tom Reichert picked it as his favorite, although he admits there may be a personal bias since “I have two little ones just like him running around the house.”

The numbers support his choice.  The closest thing to the VW ad, in terms of views, was last year’s winning Dorito’s ad which has had more than 7 Million views.  Apple’s “1984” spot has had half that number (6.5 Million views) and it has been around for more than 20 years, although, yes, YouTube has only been around for six of those years.  Last year’s walk-away hit, the Betty White Snickers advertisement, ‘only’ scored 3 Million views, even though it has been on YouTube for a solid year.  VW’s other Super Bowl ad, Black Beetle, had half a Million views on YouTube.  The Dorito’s Pug Attack ad has had only 1.2 Million YouTube views.  YouTube, by the way, is running a contest for best Super Bowl ad.  It ends February 14^th… about the time nobody is any longer interested in the ads. 

Also, on the on-line front, Vanessa Fox, writing on the SearchEngineLand.com website, said that for the first time, most of the advertisers used Facebook URL’s instead of their own domain names.  That’s both good and bad.  Good because it provides an easy and familiar platform; Bad because it gives away their Super Bowl traffic to Facebook and excluded some of their audience since fewer than half of Americans are on Facebook.  She noted that she did not see any Twitter accounts listed in the commercials, although some of the spots for the movies had Twitter hashtags.  As a side note, the Los Angeles Times critic said the various movie advertisements “landed with a thud.”  On the ‘positive’ side, Fox says all (100%) of the brands had some search visibility this year – a major improvement over previous years.  On the ‘dumb’ side of the equation though, and somewhat unbelievably, Fox notes that many brands didn’t include the Super Bowl ads on their home pages. 

      IMPORTED FROM DETROIT:  A prediction here.  That is going to be the run-away slogan in the upcoming year, and not just for Chrysler which coined it in its Super Bowl ad featuring Eminem.  Search Engine’s Fox called the search engine response when the ad appeared – Volcanic.  Her assessment is also mirrored in a study by a marketing professor at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business.  His analysis of Tweets generated by ads ranked the Chrysler/ Eminem spot as the hot spot.  Indicative of the different interpretations one can get from surveys and social media responses, the Chrysler ad came in the middle to lower end of the consumer surveys by both USA Today and Fox Sports.  But several media websites, including ArtisanNews.com, are saying it is the best of the Super Bowl spots.  For what little it’s worth, I agree.  A caveat – not my favorite.  But the best.   

      FOLLOWING THE LEADER:  The hit Fox television show, Glee, followed the Super Bowl game and scored some records of its own with an 11.1 Rating in Adults 18-49.  A drop of 35 points, but still a record.  The networks will often place shows behind the Super Bowl to give them a boost.  According to Entertainment Weekly’s website, EW.com, of the 20 highest rated shows following the Super Bowl that it followed, the top scorer was an episode of Friends which followed… interestingly… the ratings-record-breaking 1996 Super Bowl.  Of course, Friends already had some heavy duty power.  Other hits that followed the Super Bowl include Grey’s Anatomy, 3^rd Rock, The Wonder Years and House.  But there were also some dogs.  Remember Davis Rules?  A sitcom starring Randy Quaid.  How about Grand Slam?  About two bail bondsmen played by John Schneider and Paul Rodriguez.  Or how about Brothers and Sisters?  Or The Last Precinct, a camp cop show starring Adam West.   What?  You don’t remember them?  Well, neither do I or most viewers.  Despite getting a Super Bowl injected ratings boost, they all lasted only one season, or even less.  Proof, hopefully, that good content still counts for something with viewers.

The Top Ten Half-Time shows, according to Entertainment Weekly, were Michael Jackson, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, U2, The Rolling Stones, New Kids on the Block, Britany Spears with Aerosmith, Patti Labelle, Up With People, and yes, wait for it… Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake.

      FOOTNOTE:  As noted in the headline, this is a special report message.  We’ll have more on the Super Bowl ads, and their implications, including a full analysis of the Twitter statistics from the marketing professor, in our next edition.  Also, as a foot note, I have tried to clean up some of the email addresses on my Message listserv.  So, those of you getting two messages will only get one.  But foot noting some more, a couple of people have dropped off the list over the last year.  So, again, I would encourage you to pass on the message to friends and encourage them to subscribe.  Okay, one last foot note -- the message is also carried on 602 Communications IdeaNet newsletter.   

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