The Emperor's Ad Costs

Clad In Rights Fees

Tonight in the Super Bowl, we had the first game that ever went to overtime, and the biggest comeback in the history of the sport. Lady Gaga performed to good reviews in the halftime show. Social media was alive with stuck helmets, amazing catches, inadvertently aired profanities, the post-game reaction of the Boston fan base against the league's commissioner, and many other game-related events.

Which means that... well... a very questionable marketing and advertising decision became ever more questionable, really.

I get why national advertisers are loathe to give up the Super addiction, honestly, I do. It's *hard* to spend five million, in a way that will get noticed, in a world with hundreds of channels and millions of feeds, and all of that was true *before* we had a 24/7 news machine in the White House. (Oh, by the way? He rooted openly for one team, but turned off the game before the big comeback, so that's going to be its own news story in the aftermath, too.) On some level, it feels like the game is the only television show that matters any more, rather than just the biggest.

But here's the thing; unless you are somehow able to get your ad noticed for the merits of the creative or your product -- unlikely at best, especially when the game is compelling -- you are pretty much playing the same game as 60-other odd candidates. Entertain with some kind of joke or visual payoff, hope that borrowed celebrity interest will make yours cut through the clutter, and "win" the news cycle of the next week, when any number of marketing and advertising writers pass out grades. If that news cycle even exists.

News flash: the grades don't translate into sales for your client. They might translate into awards for agencies, and I suppose that might create business down the line, but I've always thought the best way to make sure you've got business to do is directly, through increasing sales and awareness. Which isn't really what most big game ads do.

What could you do with the five million bucks that you need to pony up for a 30-second spot? In the case of small market awareness clients like Alfa Romeo, an inexplicable presence in this year's game, probably celebrity visits to individual buyers in key markets, because honestly, there just aren't that many people who've got the scratch and interest in supercars.

You could probably own a social media platform for the better part of a week for people who are actually targeted and attuned to your goods or services. Perhaps a few million unavoidable 30-second audio spots on streaming music services or podcasts, targeted spots that users can't skip or leave the room for on YouTube, goodies in direct mail, spots in theaters where people are pretty much a captive audience, outdoor and print spots that might actually help build your brand and make your other channels more effective, or just to be blunt, targeted discounts to a prospect list... or some very healthy combination of all of the above. That you could measure, learn from, and improve moving into the future, because you'd have a control, testing data, and all of that other really unsexy stuff. I've had this gig for other companies; we've done pretty far-reaching programs, with outreach in a dozen channels, for a fraction of that thirty second moon shot.

You know, an actual plan, rather than just a one-off approach that will be forgotten about in a week, or, in the event of a really compelling game like last night's, as soon as the spot ends.

But I'm sure it'll all be better next year, when the costs are higher and the audience is lower, because the NFL isn't doing quite so good of a job as you might like in attracting younger audiences. (It's also not as likely to have the same number as it did this year, since overtime hadn't happened in the previous 50-odd games.)

Honestly, how many years do we have to see that the emperor has no clothes before we stop buying spots in the fashion program?

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