2005 Super Bowl Ads… Winners & Losers

2005 Super Bowl Ads… Winners & Losers

by: John Jordan

Well, Super Bowl XXXIX is history. Too bad for the folks who consider themselves the alwayspullinกfortheunderdog type. The Bandwagon team won.

But, as far as Super Bowls go, the losers played well. For those who care, the Eagles actually covered the 7point spread. T.O. is the deal, too. At least on the field, anyway.

They had a chance late in the game, but poor field position and bad clock management did them in. Scoring from 95 yards out with 48 seconds left? Thatกs a tall order.

So is getting/maintaining ad recall 48 hours after the final gun. Whose $80,000 per second ad was worth it? Who wouldกve done better by writing me a fat check for $2.4 million?

Read on, and find out. True to school yard rules: Suckers Walk. Losers are up first.

Losers:

Sorry, Donovan, but your three picks lands you in with GoDaddy.com, Quiznoกs, and Silestone. I don’t care if you were ill.

GoDaddy.com had a decent concept that quickly went bad. OK. Boopsie talking to a Senate subcommittee on CSPAN about indecency. Good start if they cut out any hint to last yearกs halftime debacle. But… they couldn’t resist. So the buxom wench wearing a GoDaddy.com tshirt has a near wardrobe malfunction. One of the craggy senators has to hit the oxygen mask.

This ad was supposed to run again, but Fox pulled it midgame. Good idea. I bet their stomachs were in as many knots as Donovan McNabbกs.

The Quiznoกs ad was mediocre at best. This talking baby concept is tiresome. As cliché as it may be, itกs still 80% less annoying than those whack rodents in pirate hats from a couple of years ago.

The one stinky Bud Light ad was one that the ESPN crowd really dug the parachuteless pilot heading out the door for the six of Diet Bud. Dumb. The desert island one with Cedric the Entertainer was iffy, too.

Speaking of stinky… what was up with Napster’s ad? Ugh! It could wind up doing more to shut them down than the Supreme Court.

This bad concept was in stark difference to their introductory spots featuring Flash animation based around their logo. Those were welldesigned and entertaining. This one was as fat and ugly as the seven shirtless blops they decided to show with a letter on each of their overdeveloped beer guts to spell NAPSTER. It was done in house and, boy, did it show.

The manufactured ขrealityข of the game and its atmosphere was lame and no one bought it. An ad taking place at the Super Bowl should be IN the Super Bowl done real time. And… trying to take on Apple’s iTunes on price? That was the second dumbest decision of this ad. No wonder it finished dead last in likability and recognition.

Now… Silestone. Valiant effort of an ad featuring Chicago sports legends. Voice over was good. It was shot nicely. But, it was a little too jumpy in the cuts to get the whole picture the first time through. The quick cut style hurt the name recognition of the line of counter tops.

Silestone and Diana Pearl are not exactly household names. And Dennis Rodman slurred his line. It sounded like กDinah Pearl, rather than, กDiana Pearl.ก Iกm sure the director or writer got dissed when they said, กUh, Worm… itกs กDiA naก.ก

กSure. Dinah.ก

As a side note, why were only Chicago Bears in it until Dennis Rodman at the end? No Scottie Pippen or Slammin’ Sammy?

On to the good กuns…

Winners:

This year, the game was nearly as good as the ads, as there were a surprisingly good number of breaking spots. Leading the pack was Career Builder, FedEx, Mastercard, and AnheuserBusch.

FedEx likes to make ads relating to advertising on advertisingกs biggest stage. They did it again patching together 10 ‘tried and trueก Super bowl ad conventions to great results.

Career Builder put a great spin on a stale category with the best work since Monsterกs กI Wanna Be…ก [a brown noser, forced into retirement, etc.] from ก98. Three ads featuring a hapless chump working for chimps managed to put their name into mind share largely dominated by two others.

MasterCard got a bunch of animated branded food icons together for a meal and a nice touch of nostalgia. Ad fans and agency folks dug this one.

AB hit emotional hot buttons with a nearpublic service ad saluting troops retuning home. Yes, they were real military not actors. Their uniforms just did not have any insignias, so the common soldier would be represented. For their light beer category, the ad with the head on the wall and the designated driver spot were the best for Bud Light.

Pepsi’s second year of an iTunes promotion kicked off well. They ran a humorous spot featuring people opening winning bottles for a free song. When the bottles were opened, a song reflecting the drinker’s taste in music would play. Although the spot was humorous and worked, Pepsi could’ve really hit a home run by involving the older ขauthority figureข more into the ad. But, keeping with brand tradition, they kept the focus young.

AmeriQuest had two entertaining spots revolving around the themes of misunderstanding and jumping to conclusions. Their message was, ขWe don’t prejudge.ข The ad featuring spaghetti sauce, a cat, and knife will certainly make some ‘Best Ofข reels this year.

Decent work also included Hondaกs new pickup/SUV product introduction. Good detail with benefit highlights. Left the กHondaก out until the end. Cadillac and Volvo had solid ads. Volvo should have bought another ad, if not two, as many people missed the early run. The audience also may have missed the details on their unique contest. But they did follow up with some net portal ads the day after. Fordกs F150 Biker spot was OK. Their line that กit makes YOU tough,ก really undercut the effectiveness.

About The Author

John is a freelance commercial writer based in Omaha, Nebraska. He publishes a free monthly ezine focusing on branding, advertising, and marketing from his web site http://www.brandedbetter.com. Speaking with both agency and inhouse experience, he knows the most valuable asset of a business is its brand.

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 10

by John Jordan

Artistic Touches Applied on Jeep Spots

Artistic Touches Applied on Jeep Spots

by: Carla Ballatan

It is a good notion to consider artists whose muses come with a sixcylinder engine. Putting such artistic plots in promoting the Jeep Liberty is an effective way to capture the target African American and Hispanic consumers.

This type of marketing is a way to captivate the target consumer, not only on the technicalities of the product, but also on the more humane level. This takes into consideration that African Americans and Hispanics have strong traditions in artistry.

The first film spot show how self expression is set in an art class. A teacher encourages her students to do selfportraits that will enable the teacher to see their inner self. Voila! A neophyte artists depicted portraits showing herself at the wheel of a Jeep Liberty. Seeing this, the teacher nodded admiringly and says: ขnow that’s what I’m talking about!ข

Another spot depicts a young Hispanic artist driving through a city and works on a mural covering the side of the building. His artwork is clearly seen as a theme on liberation – an image of his new Jeep Liberty.

These artistic productions were made by Hank Benson of Avalon Films, conceived by Detroit agency – GlobalHue. The conceptualization was done by the staff of GlobalHue, who are fine artists themselves. Thus, the spots were made more realistic and compelling by that fact.

Since they wanted to capture a specific market for the Jeep Liberty, it is important for the spots to be felt with honesty and authenticity. Thus, Benson spent a lot of time interviewing painters and street artists. This helped him in the casting and art direction. Such that, the actual shoot for the spots really flowed, as in real life drama.

Even the locations were chosen by keeping in mind the essence of the stories depicted in the spots. New York City was finally chosen for its having a strong connection with the fine arts, became another character in the stories. One of the best considerations for choosing New York was because there’s art at every corner of the city – on the walls, sidewalks, store and restaurants.

The rhythms for the spots were also attuned to the reality it wants to capture. The art class spot had the feel of hip hop or tap, while the Hispanic spot was more like a tango or salsa. These make the spots an art piece with elements of dance, painting and theater.

There is an explicit complexity in both the spots’ art direction making it a very subtle marketing ploy that would not only encourage consumers but also give them a chance to pick up something new and fresh.

The Avalon Films’ offices are located at 33300 Thomas St., Farmington, Michigan 48336, and at 1501 Colorado Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90401. If you need further information, call (248) 4739295 or (310) 3948300.30

About The Author

Lala B. is a 26 yearold Communication Arts graduate, with a major in Journalism. Right after graduating last 1999, she worked for one year as a clerk then became a Research, Publication and Documentation Program Director at a nongovernment organization, which focuses on the rights, interests and welfare of workers for about four years.

Book reading has always been her greatest passion mysteries, horrors, psychothrillers, historical documentaries and classics. She got hooked into it way back when she was but a shy kid.

Her writing prowess began as early as she was 10 years old in girlish diaries. With writing, she felt freedom – to express her viewpoints and assert it, to bring out all concerns imagined and observed, to bear witness.

For additional information about the article log on to http://www.shortrunondemandprinting.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 11

by Carla Ballatan

Choosing the Right Strategy for your Online Busine

Choosing the Right Strategy for your Online Business: Pay for Inclusion vs Pay per Click

by: Richard Zwicky

Back in the old days of the Internet in 1993, there were 284 locations on the entire World Wide Web. According to Bill Clinton, only 8 of them ended in .com or .net when he was sworn into office. As of January 1, 2003, there were 171,000,000 domain hosts in use. In 1995, the largest search engine database was Altavista, and it had most of the Internet categorized. Today Google and FASTsearch own the largest databases. Yet neither one of them has even 10% of the Internet covered. Itกs estimated that more than 8,000,000 web pages are added to the Internet every day. None of the search engines are able to keep up to that pace. So how will your website stand out? How will it acquire the traffic it needs to succeed? There are many ways to approach the issue of marketing an online business, but for the sake of this article, weกll concern ourselves solely with online tools, and ways to expedite success. In that vein, weกll concern ourselves with Pay for Inclusion and Pay for Placement (or Pay per Click) advertising.

Some engines, such as AltaVista, Inktomi, Looksmart and FAST, use a pay for inclusion model. What this means is that to be guaranteed to be found within that specific search engine index, the website operator must pay a fee to be listed. Itกs similar to the fee a business pays for a Yellow Pages listing. These fees vary from monthly to annual. Looksmart charges a listing fee, plus a fee of $0.15 per clickthrough.

Engaging a PayforInclusion service does not come with any placement guarantees. If your website is not properly optimized, but you paid an inclusion fee, it is guaranteed to be indexed and listed somewhere within that search engine. If you want to ensure success with a PayforInclusion search engine, then your website must still be optimized. Without proper optimization, which includes an analysis from the perspective of all the factors that the search engines look for, a pay for inclusion service will not deliver the desired benefits to the website operator.

When properly matched with a comprehensive Search Engine Optimization regimen, a Pay for Inclusion program will result in powerful results: Qualified Traffic, Customers, and Relevant Traffic.

Pay per Click advertising is the process by which a web site operator can arrange for a website to be placed in a predefined position within certain search engines, such as Overture.

Search Engine Placement is always a PayPerClick solution. While advertising websites are only permitted to buy advertising in search queries that are relevant to their content, they are not sorted by relevance but rather purely based on bid value.

Pay per click services allow advertisers to bid for each visitor directed through to their web site, based upon the number of clicks the ad receives. Pay per Click search engine placement should be realistically viewed for what it is an online auction. Advertisers bid against each other for a fixed position within a list of search results. The advertiser who bids the most is given the top spot in the list. Each advertiser bids according to their budget, and has to know his or her Return On Investment (ROI) to determine how much money should be spent on acquiring new customers.

How Do I Know Which Strategy Is Right For My Website?

For those advertisers where the ROI is sensible or worthwhile, pay per click search engines are valuable customer acquisition tools. But is it right for you? While it can be expensive, hereกs a way for you to easily determine the ROI for your online business, and determine if it is the right choice for you. Take out a sheet of paper, and at the top of the sheet mark down the average price of the goods you sell weกll use $100.00 for the purpose of the example. From that number, make some simple and basic calculations, outlined here:

$100.00 Sale Amount

$ 50.00 Cost of Goods

$ 5.00 Transaction Cost (bank charges, credit card)

$ 8.50 Shipping Fees (This assumes you’re delivering a product, it needs a box, label, and has a delivery cost.

$ 10.00 Customer support costs time on phone, email, etc… supporting and processing the transaction. Whatกs 1 hour of your time worth?

$ 26.50 = Margin

Assuming this margin is correct for your website, is a Pay per Click campaign right for you? Youกll need to look at your stats to judge this properly. You need to determine how many of your visitors are converting into buyers. IF your website has a 4% conversion rate, and your category is moderately competitive, you will probably need to budget at least $1.00 per click to get spot #3. Spot #3 is important because more often than not itกs the top 3 spots per page of search engine results that are reserved for Pay per Click advertisers.

Assuming your website gets into the top three spots, hereกs how the math works if you get 100 clicks in a month. Since itกs all percentage based, the same holds true if you get 25 clicks or 10,000 clicks.

100 clicks @ $1.00 per click = $100.00 cost 4% conversion = 4 sales = 4x $26.50 (margin on sale) = $106.00 Profit = $ 6.00

So, if the above were true, and IF the pay per click advertisement sent you 100 visitors per month, you would make only $6.00. Would you make much less having spot #4 instead of spot #3 ? If it meant one less sale a month, that would be worth it. You would make $70.00 more by selling less! Does spot #3 get much more traffic than relevant results in spots 4 through 10? Not at all for spot # 4, 5, 6, and only a little bit more for spot #กs 710. Remember, people usually look at the title or site description to see if it is relevant. Pay per Click is worth the money if your website is not found under any relevant queries in the top 20, but its value drops quickly if a website is found easily in the free listings within the search engines.

Is Pay for Inclusion Less Expensive?

If we use the same calculation as above, and your website had 4 sales from a pay for inclusion engine where you paid $39.00 per year, or $3.25 / month, your profit would have been $103.25.

What About The Cost Of Search Engine Optimization?

Search engine optimization does not have to be expensive. You can do the work yourself, but you need to ensure that it makes sense to do so. By this I mean, is doing it yourself a cost efficient, business proposition? Any time that you as an individual put into search engine optimization is time that you take away from business fundamentals and essentials. Itกs time away from customer support, content creation, service, administration, product research, other marketing, etc… What is that time worth? Itกs got to be part of the ROI calculation too. More and more people are choosing to outsource this work. Itกs estimated that 70% of online businesses will outsource noncore operations this year. It only makes sense. Itกs smart business to focus on what you know and do well and to hire others to support you in the other areas. Not many smart businessmen write their own contracts they get their lawyer to do it. They want to ensure itกs done right. Doing it right in the first place saves money in the long run. Outsourcing means getting someone else to do the work for you, properly. It does not mean getting someone to tell you what to do, or how to do things.

Whatกs Right For Your Website?

In the long run, a website operator that has a well optimized website will beat out a nonoptimized website that concentrates on Pay per Click advertising for customer acquisition every day of the year. He may make fewer sales in a year, but he will make more profit from each sale. If the website is properly optimized, it will enjoy better placement in more search engines. This means it will survive, and prosper in the long run.

About The Author

Richard Zwicky is a founder and the CEO of Metamend Software, a Victoria B.C. based firm whose cutting edge Search Engine Optimization software has been recognized around the world as a leader in its field. Employing a staff of 10, the firmกs business comes from around the world, with clients from every continent. Most recently the company was recognized for their geolocational, or GIS technology, which correlates online businesses with their physical locations.

[email protected]

This article was posted on November 18, 2003

by Richard Zwicky