Entertainment or Revenue

People are still talking about and reacting to the Super Bowl commercials. For airing once, these multi-million dollar commercials receive a week’s worth of airplay. They also receive more commentary than any other commercials. Most of the comments center around how much those commenting liked or disliked the commercials. This week, I have heard lots of agreement in the critics’ remarks. “This year’s Super Bowl commercials were the least entertaining in several years.”

The commercial which has received the most positive attention is one which addressed a negative situation: the one featuring Letterman, Oprah, and Leno. This commercial got attention because it was shocking, addressed a recent controversy, and starred three memorable celebrities. Its message was simple and funny. In addition to the critics, the commercial has received airplay this week on the celebrities’ shows. Unlike many of its counterparts, this commercial will be replayed and remembered for quite a while.

Quite likely, this commercial accomplished its objective. What objective was that?

Since this was a commercial for his show, his basic objective was to promote David Letterman. He wanted to be funny. He wanted to be “a good sport.” He wanted to talk to more than his viewers; he wanted to talk to Oprah’s and Leno’s viewers, too. Ironically, this unpaid, network promotion may be the most effective commercial from this year’s Super Bowl.

This commercial accomplished reaching its target market, delivering its message, and prompting those receiving the message to act. It did an excellent job associating its product, David Letterman, with its message. Its target market was late night viewers. Its message was that Letterman is funny, perhaps that he is funnier than Leno. I have not seen any numbers, but I suspect that his show’s viewership is up this week. Whether those numbers will remain up when Leno returns to late night is yet to be determined. However, Letterman seized an opportunity offered by the Super Bowl, a highly-watched program, being positioned during a time when his competition was weakened to promote his show.

That was smart marketing.

While not all of us as business people get the opportunity that Letterman did, we all can learn two lessons from his commercial. One is to be alert for opportunities such as this, and the other is to create a commercial which accomplishes your objective. Letterman achieved his objective by creating an entertaining commercial that promoted his show well. I assume that increasing sales was the objective of the businesses running the paid commercials, most of which were entertaining. To be so, many sacrificed association of their products with the commercial. These commercials were expensive entertainment which, I suspect, did not reach their objective.

Unfortunately, the Super Bowl has fostered a competition to create an entertaining commercial. I understand the attraction for doing so. However, if this entertainment comes at the expense of achieving more sales because the entertaining commercial is not associated with the product or service, then what has the advertiser accomplished?
As an example, name three commercials from the Super Bowl and the products or services that they were promoting. Can you do it?

For those that you named, have you purchased the product or service this week?