Who will win the battle of the brands?
I joined the 100 million or so other people watching the Super Bowl last night and, like everyone else, had some opinions on the ads in the big game. This year was a bit different for us as a company because its the first time we’ve had clients in the Super Bowl (we work with .CO, Audi and VW, but didn’t work on their Super Bowl presence). While, there were clearly some winners in my book (Chrysler, VW, Audi, Best Buy, Doritos, Pepsi Max, LivingSocial, .CO, Eminem), I found a few things equally perplexing. So, naturally, as the game progressed, I sat surrounded by a room full of people, laptop in hand, tweeting my opinions to #brandbowl and trying to keep my wife, a Steelers fan, from freaking out. Without further adieu, here are some of my quick reactions:
- Everywhere I looked in the weeks leading up to the game, I read something about how brands were going all out in the digital space this year to extend their investment. I was quite surprised when I found lots of brands simply linking to their Super Bowl commercials on their home pages and not doing a whole lot else. Its almost like its 1999 again for many brands. I suspect this is because there has been a concerted effort to bring the brand experience to the platforms where customers already are (i.e. Facebook), but I wonder if some brands have gone too far with this and missed out on bigger opportunities for those curious consumers that happen upon their branded sites. I’ll be keeping my eye on this over the next week or so as I’m sure a lot more will develop online in the next few days. Read more
