Published: January 27, 2011
Super Bowl Advertising is a Waste of Money, According to Marketing Doctor John Tantillo
According to Dr. Tantillo, "Super Bowl ad buys make little sense from a practical advertising point of view because they violate the law of frequency. Countless studies have shown that for advertising to work it must be seen by a viewer at least five times with the optimal frequency being ten. The Super Bowl's prohibitive advertising spot costs make this frequency unlikely."
Dr. Tantillo asks why otherwise savvy marketers, who for the other 364 days of the year believe in the law of frequency, suddenly abandon it. "There are numerous reasons: the 'glamour' factor, the celebrity factor, the showcasing of the creatives at advertising agencies, and the hope that a company might just hit some kind of elusive jackpot - but the jackpot never happens."
"Moreover, the hope of many advertisers to create a memorable or witty spot that gets replayed in perpetuity on the Internet and thus earns back the huge Super Bowl advertising expense is misguided. Check out the YouTube viewer numbers for some of the most famous and beloved ads and you will see that they are anemic, seldom exceeding one million over four years. Super Bowl ads with an interactive component and contests can offer limited help.
"The main hope for Super Bowl advertisers," Dr. Tantillo argues, "is the concept of adpublitizing. Adpublitizing is the creation of an advertisement for the specific purpose of creating controversy or buzz - both of which will ensure greater viewer frequency by the use of free media publicity (e.g., talk shows covering the controversy and inevitably naming the company and the product).
"A company's best bet is to make an ad controversial in a way that doesn't hurt the company image but causes the ad to be banned. Then the law of frequency kicks in on the publicity side and the Internet re-airing side, but this is an incredibly risky strategy that can easily see a company over-shooting the mark and ending up on the wrong side of publicity."
This year, Anheuser Busch is previewing its ads before the game. Dr. Tantillo believes that the beer company is probably using an approach that intends to increase frequency by way of adpublitizing - but the company is also showing that Super Bowl advertising isn't really about the advertising; in Anheuser Busch's case it might very well be about throwing a kind of appreciation party for their distributors who, after all, are the folks that close the sales week after week by getting the product to the shelves.
"Over all, a Super Bowl ad buy is simply a waste of money. Thus, it is no mistake that companies like Federal Express and General Motors have begun to actively find much more cost-effective alternatives to the big game."
Five Fast Facts Why Super Bowl Advertising is a Waste of Money:
1) The most famous ad in Super Bowl history - Apples 1984 ad directed by Ridley Scott of Gladiator fame - became an icon and introduced so-called event marketing, but for Apple, it spelled the beginning of the end in its personal computer war with IBM and Windows. In fact, in the year following the big Super Bowl ad, Apple sold fewer computers than ever.
2) Not everybody watches the Super Bowl. The same money spent on Super Bowl ads, used instead to reach those watching other television programs on at the same time, and could land almost double the viewers in the 18-49 demographic.
3) Why does the hype continue? Because Super Bowl advertising is great publicity for advertising agencies. (Unfortunately, it's a poor business decision for their clients).
4) A direct marketing campaign that invested $3 million in advertising and production costs (the rough price tag of a 30-second Super Bowl commercial) would generate a much higher multiple of sales.
5) The cost for one Super Bowl ad in 2010 (somewhere between $2.4 and $2.7 million for a 30-second spot) could buy up to 600 30-second ads in the New York market or 800 30-second ads in Los Angeles.
About the Author
John Tantillo, known as the Marketing Doctor (http://www.mdaltd.com), holds a Ph.D. in research psychology and is credited with coining the term, "The O'Reilly Factor," used as the title for the Fox commentator's show. Tantillo is regularly called on by the media to apply his experience in psychology and marketing to everything from politics to celebrity brands. He has a reputation for identifying early trends and shifts in the political, cultural and corporate marketplace and has developed sophisticated methodologies for analyzing brand equity. Tantillo was one of the first commentators to draw attention to the recent trend of creating an advertisement for the sake of generating controversial coverage, something he calls "adpublitizing."
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