Whether you’re a Falcons or Patriots fan, Super Bowl 51 was unarguably one of the most unbelievable games ever. Full disclosure, I am a Patriots fan (btw for more than the last amazing 16 years…). It was the first Super Bowl ever to go into overtime and a crazy come from behind win that saw Tom Brady win his 5th championship. Way to go Brady, Belichick, and the rest of the awesome team and coaches!
As with every Super Bowl, the commercials were a big part of the game. In today’s roundup of online and partner marketing news and opinion, we look at some of the coverage and commentary around this year’s SB brand advertising.
Secrets From a Super Bowl Campaign That’s Had 2 Billion Impressions
Want to get over two billion (yes, with a “B”) social impressions nearly a week before your commercial spot is aired? That’s what Avocados From Mexico (AFM), in its third year entering the Super Bowl advertising space, just accomplished. How does a smaller brand that started participating in one of the largest social conversations just two years ago achieve these results among some of the most digitally savvy (and significantly larger budgeted) brands? Entrepreneur contributor Jill Schiefelbein distilled AFM’s strategy into three key steps that any business can learn from and follow.
Three Things to Know About the Company Behind the Super Bowl’s Most Controversial Ad
Sunday’s Super Bowl—traditionally the most prime of times for TV advertising—featured an array of ads on the theme of immigration and diversity. Budweiser told the story of its co-founder’s journey from Germany to the US, recounting some of the prejudice he faced, and Coca-Cola featured a multilingual cast singing “America The Beautiful.” The most controversial, however—and perhaps the most poignant—was aired by a building materials supply company called 84 Lumber. It showed a mother and daughter embarking on a journey across Mexico in a bid to reach the U.S. In a Fortune post, Joseph Hincks breaks down the details on the company behind the 2017 Super Bowl’s most controversial ad.
Super Bowl LI Ads: 9 Inexpensive Lessons For The Rest of Us
Who won Super Bowl LI? Besides the Patriots, that is. For starters, Fox did pretty well. Days before the game, a Fox exec crowed, “We are going to finish with the highest revenue day in Fox history.” When you sell dozens of ads for $10 million per minute, there’s probably a pretty good pizza party in the break room. So advertisers must have done well too, right? Not so fast. Communicus, a research firm, has conducted several studies of Super Bowl ad effectiveness. Their findings? Only about one advertiser in five actually builds its brand. Matthew Fenton, Business Journal contributor shares some Super Bowl lessons for the challengers, the upstarts, and the believers in effectiveness.
Cards Against Humanity’s Fake Super Bowl Ad was Actually a Brilliant Marketing Stunt
Instead of really buying an astronomically pricey ad spot for the Super Bowl, Cards Against Humanity opted to run an amusing fake news report saying it had done so – and had failed epically doing it. As TheNextWeb reports, Instead of wasting millions of resources to potentially end up on one of the many ‘worst commercials’ lists that proliferate after each Super Bowl, Cards Against Humanity found a way to capitalize on the Super Bowl craze without actually having to pay for it – and did so in style, which as we’ve all seen is something money can’t always buy.
Kia wins USA TODAY’s Ad Meter behind Melissa McCarthy’s ‘Hero’s Journey’
No one had a better night than Tom Brady, but Melissa McCarthy and Kia came close. Her slapstick shtick for Kia won the 29th annual USA TODAY Ad Meter competition in a crazy commercial where she gets bounced out of a boat by a rampaging whale, among other ecological calamities. The 60-second spot, called “Hero’s Journey,” is about an eco-warrior called on to save the whales — and the trees and the polar ice caps. Each time she strives heroically but ends up with the sort of cartoonish comeuppance more commonly associated with Wile E. Coyote. (Except that he chased the Roadrunner, while she gets chased by rhinos.)
What was your favorite Super Bowl 51 commercial?
