Every year most of us gather at the neighbors house, bring our favorite 7 layer dip, order up some wings, open a cold beer and watch the Super Bowl. This year we got to see an incredible game with a horrible ending; if you are a Seahawks fan that is. (Sorry Scott Smalling, maybe next year my friend.) Some of the Super Bowl ads went the same direction, great idea but with a horrible execution ending in failure.
If you wanted to have your spot seen this year by over 111.3 million fans (largest Super Bowl audience EVER), then it would have cost you about $4 million for a .30 second spot or $8 million for a .60. That is a lot of eyeballs watching your commercial and the great thing about creating a Super Bowl ad, is that you are more likely for someone to see your commercial because of all the hype. (What other television program makes that big a deal out of watching their commercials?)
A few that I liked in no particular order: (You can view them all and vote for your favorites HERE.)
- Viagra pill from Fiat. Fun commercial that had you wondering where the story was going to take you, ending on a hero shot of the car. They made this fun to watch and I thought the casting was perfect for the older couple.
- Doritos came out with their “Crash the Super Bowl” contest ad called”Middle Seat.” Scott Zabielski, a graduate student from University of Southern California, was the Doritos consumer that won the $1 million. Great idea here with the perfect formula. Make it funny, include cute baby, feature beautiful girl. Done. Winner.
- The Snickers ad using the Brady Bunch show as a backdrop was awesome. For starters I used to love watching the Brady Bunch as a kid (stop judging me), and second, the contrast of the ax yielding bad guy with Mr. and Mrs. Brady worked great. I also loved seeing a cameo by my man Nucky from Boardwalk Empire which I referenced last week.
My big question to you is, what would your Super Bowl ad look like? Pretend for a minute that you have one shot at reaching 111 million people. What would you say? Would you tell everyone that you can discount your products by 50%? Would you lead with a free box spring, or give away something even more valuable like a adjustable bed base or a 50″television? If you had 30 seconds to build value in who you are and what you do, wouldn’t you try to include something about how you can improve people’s lives with your products? I know one thing, you would likely gather your team and be very careful to first identify what is so compelling about what you do, and then you would look for a creative way to tell that story. You might even hire someone to help you produce such a spot, making sure that you took great care with every second you had. (This makes a lot of sense given the fact that every second cost you about $133,333.)
If that approach is right for the Super Bowl, isn’t it also right for your website, ads, trade promotions, social media content etc?
Q’s Views Challenge: Give me your idea on what a great mattress or sleep products ad would look like on the Super Bowl either as a manufacturer or a retailer. I can’t give you $1 million but I will feature your idea in my next blog. Share that in the comments section or on the LinkedIn thread in Mattress Industry Executives. Good luck!
2 thoughts on “What Would Your Super Bowl Ad Look Like?”
Okay, I’ll give it a shot. Let’s key in on improving our consumers’ lives or health, which is exactly what we should be doing.
Open with a warm and fuzzy scene, where a doctor is making a house call to a patient, complete with his medical satchel in hand. (Even show a resident, housewife, whatever, answering the door and exclaiming “Thank God you’re here!”) Then continue with ……Remember the good ol’ days, when your family doctor would come to your home and give you personal, undivided attention? When you didn’t have to wait for an appointment or decide which specialist to see next?…..
Zoom forward (cut scene) to another shot. A delivery van for your company (complete with signage on the truck) pulls up to the front curb, and a driver walks up to the door with a big smile on his face. (Perhaps even carrying a set of sheets or matt protector) Again, resident opens the door and exclaims “Thank God you’re here!” I’d even go so far as to have the resident bent over in pain or something like that for effect.
Take the message from there. At XYZ, we do much more than just prescribe little red pills…..we deliver better health through more comfortable and restorative sleep…to your door…every night for years to come….yadadada….Probably be best to tame down the “pills” slant so as not to offend the AMA, but I’m sure this could be pulled off. Successfully.
I understand that you can’t dole out a million dollars. A cool quarter-mil will suffice just fine, Mark. Smiles.
Well done Kevin!!! I wish I had the $250,000 prize money that doesn’t exist! 🙂 I like your angle because I don’t think that the average consumer out there even realizes that a solution to being tired might be the mattress instead of caffeine, or a pill. We just have to make sure that the pill isn’t blue! I appreciate you taking the time to share this. YOU WIN!