Super Bowl 2013: Creative is King

Super Bowl advertising is expensive and represents some of the best known ‘spots’ in global advertising.

Traditionally, it is the best cocktail of TV and outdoor that has the power (audience) and prestige (position) to make or break a brand, but cash alone (approx. USD 3.5 million for 15 second spot) does not guarantee position. That comes down to creative (and relationships).

With Super Bowl kicking off in the wee hours of Monday morning (Sydney, Australia time), Super Bowl creative is top of mind in corporate and creative circles around the world.

This year, Visa declined a spot in favour of social, while  Kia and Budweiser have put together some key spots.
Although, Mercedes inspite of the the use of fire, not so hot.
And while fellow automotive VW creative was controversial,  GoDaddy.com ‘s shock and awe tactics won out, by pairing a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model and nerdy computer type in a raunchy game of tonsil tennis.

Samsung, put a fresh spin on the use of celebrity ambassadors, as Coca-Cola raised the engagement stakes for gamification, but potentially at the cost of the creative. While also highlighting why Super Bowl ads are not always broadcast outside of the USA, with this gem. Anyone else thinking Bundy?

While Doritos reverts to its original point of (campaign) origin for Super Bowl creative: story-telling by an amateur creative and Doritos Crash the Super Bowl competition winner,  Pizza Hut keeps it simple in a fabulously contextually relevant way.
When it comes to ad creative EVERYONE has an opinion. Talk Super Bowl and quite frankly, it doesn’t get much bigger.
But as with all marketing communications, what works, and what doesn’t is personal.
So what works for you this Super Bowl final advertising season? And most importantly, Why?
For the Quantitatively-minded: Check out the latest Super Bowl consumption infographic from Nielsen:
Media Consumption by Nielsen

Media Consumption by Nielsen

2 comments

Leave a Reply to Patrick McFadden Cancel reply

Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s