Super Bowl Commercials Essay, Research Paper

Super Bowl advertising: What really works? Introduction. 1. Introduction. Once a

year almost the entire U.S. population sits down to watch the same program, the

Super Bowl. But they are also watching scores of brand new commercials. The

commercials they are watching are produced by the best and the brightest in the

business using immense amounts of money. At a record average of $2.2 million

dollars per 30-second spot, 25 percent more than 1999 commercial spots, each

commercial is very special or at least should be.( ) Research shows that Super

bowl commercials are recalled at more than double the rate of commercials run

during "normal" prime time programming. ( ) And with 58 commercials

scheduled, it’s important to be special, creative, and original. It would be a

colossal waste of money, after all, if viewers turned sponsors’ shill time into

opportunities for refrigerator runs and bathroom breaks. The Superbowl ads cost

$165 million dollars to make and then display. ( ) ABC estimated 130,745,000

people watched the game, making it the fifth-biggest audience for any TV

telecast. 1999’s Super bowl game, broadcast by Fox, was watched by 127.5

million. ( ) Commercials aired during the Super Bowl can generate almost as much

attention as the football itself. If the game fails to be comparative early on,

there can be significant fall off in viewers. Advertisers whose commercials air

in the fourth quarter of a lopsided game can take as much of beating as the

losing team. The reverse also can be true, however. If the game is close, no one

will be going anywhere and more people will view the commercials. Purpose for

the study. The purpose of this study is to determine whether or not it is

financially feasible for Super Bowl advertisers to pay high cost commercials

spots shown during the prime time. The Super Bowl telecast typically attracts

the biggest TV audience of the year and it has become a showcase for advertising

as well, allowing the network that carries it to charge seemingly endlessly

escalating prices. To millions of people, half the fun of watching the Super

Bowl is the commercials. But do people really pay attention to what is

advertised or do they just watch the commercials to find out if they are funny?

The study will focus on audience’s retention, and advertising effectiveness.

This study will be a valuable tool for companies that wish to advertise during

future Super bowl events. Advertising companies can utilize this study to

evaluate the effectiveness upon the audience. II. Methodology. People can forget

advertising very rapidly. So we will wait a week or two before checking to see

if commercials are still having a measurable effect on them. When we contact

them we want to use something that gets through to virtually everybody,

everywhere, on the first try. With today’s busy lifestyles, voice mail and

answering machines, the telephone will not be the method of choice. We will do

this type of ad tracking by reaching all types of people everywhere, and we

wanted the number who decline to participate to be as small as possible. We will

accomplish all these objectives by mailing questionnaires to a nationwide sample

drawn from all households for which an address is available from either an auto

registration or a telephone listing, six days after the Super Bowl. First: How

many noticed the commercials? Recognition provides the best measure of

intrusiveness because it is the most accurate, complete and reliable measure of

the number that noticed the commercial. It separates the people who noticed a

commercial from those who ignored it, or were never exposed to it, so we can see

if it had any effect on them. It shows if the communication process had a chance

to start. We will also look at a key measure of the information communicated by

the commercials. How many remembered who they were for? Some commercials for

jeans and credit cards did an excellent job getting noticed but not in getting

the name across. Second: How many were affected by the commercials they noticed?

The previous measures only show if the commercial had a chance to affect people.

To find out if it actually did, two types of measures will be used — likability

and diagnostics. However, if people like a commercial but can’t remember who it

was for, it can’t have an effect on sales. So, we combine the two in our second

basic measure of advertising’s impact: the percent of recognizers that knew who

it was for and liked it. Third: What gives the most bang per buck? How do these

results compare with the number reached and affected by the average commercial

aired on the networks during prime time? On an overall basis, 44 percent of the

Super Bowl commercials reached and affected more people than the average

prime-time network commercial, after allowing for differences in expenditures.

So even though the overall split is close to 50/50, prime network time is a

slightly better buy. But the odds change dramatically when you separate Super

Bowl commercials into those that were only aired on the Super Bowl and those

that received a lot of additional airings. That turns out to be one of the main

differences reflected in the two sets of top commercials listed previously. The

first set with the top recognition scores all had a lot of additional exposure.

The amount spent to air a commercial has its biggest effect on recognition. It

accounts for much less of the variation found in the impact advertising has on

those who notice it. Airing a commercial on the Super Bowl delivers the largest

possible number of first-time exposures. Spending the same amount on any other

combination of programs is almost certain to deliver a substantial number of

people who are seeing the commercial for the second time or the third time, etc.

As expected, the Super Bowl proves most cost efficient in reaching men and

sports fans. But it is also more efficient in reaching college graduates,

professionals and executives, skilled blue-collar workers and those under 30

than it is in reaching their opposite counterparts. Fourth: What approaches

worked best? The mood was far more important than the message, particularly the

humor, uniqueness and the pace. Their messages were not seen as being nearly as

persuasive, credible or clear as in the average prime-time network commercial.

Yet these were very successful commercials, as shown by the above-average impact

on purchasing interest. Advertising tracking. Once commercials are aired, the

only way to know if the advertising is working is tracking research. It’s the

ultimate acid test of advertising effectiveness. The tracking questionnaire A

well-designed advertising tracking questionnaire will be developed including the

following essential measurements: — Unaided and aided brand awareness. The

creation and maintenance of brand awareness is one of the most fundamental (and

most valuable) goals of advertising. Advertising can be effective if it does

nothing more than create brand awareness. — Advertising message recall. What

messages and ideas from the advertising do consumers remember? Do the remembered

messages correspond to the advertising messages that the advertising was

intended to communicate? To ask consumers who are aware of the advertising

whether the advertising communicated each point. Advertising message recall is

measured by an open-ended question, to which respondents give unaided,

spontaneous answers. This question helps determine if the intended messages are

getting through to consumers. Advertising message recall also provides an

indication of consumer memory distortion and learning effects over time. That

is, once a commercial starts running, consumers do not remember everything in it

equally. Some elements stick in the memories of consumers, and other elements

fade away. Knowing the elements that have the highest memory value is of great

benefit in improving future creative executions. — Demographics. Key

demographics such as geography, age, sex, education and income should always be

included. These variables are extremely valuable in analyzing tracking survey

results and in defining the optimal target market for a brand. Conclusion What

other event, and what other medium besides network television could reach 100+

million men, women and children simultaneously and hold their collective

attention for four hours? So, despite the rapid emergence of the Internet as an

advertising medium and ever-declining primetime ratings, network television is

still the king of all media, at least for event broadcasts.