Tony Quin CEO IQTV

OK, a $2.5 million spot on the Super Bowl. That’s maybe 67 million 30 second impressions with bathroom breaks. Mmmm…we worked on a special website for Royal Caribbean -- www.freedomoftheseas.com -- that cost way less than that (we could have taken the entire readership of iMedia Connection to Mexico for a week with what we had left over!). So far over 1.5 million people have spent an average of 8.5 minutes with it. That’s the average, so I presume some people actually moved in.

Now if I had that $2.5 million I would take $1 mm, oh… call it $1.5mm, and create the most extraordinary web experience anyone has ever seen. It would be an experience that engages the viewer with a rich, compelling content experience that actually moves them through the value proposition for the brand, without them even knowing it. It would take people that arrive because of a curiosity click and immerse them in the experience of the brand, engaging them in increments, while building the bricks of the value proposition one on top of another. Before they know it, they would understand dramatically more about the product than anyone can communicate in 30 seconds.

All of us have to really understand a product’s value proposition before we buy anything, and since many products have complex value propositions, you absolutely need time to get the whole message across. The web is the only place you can get that time. And now with the creative limitations of the web falling away, thanks to the rise of broadband, we can engage prospects with a depth, breadth and individual relevance that no other medium can touch.

The other million? I would buy that Alpaca farm I’ve had my eye on. No, wait, that’s if I win the lottery. No…I would, of course, use the rest of the money to buy rich media web ads. Ads with the simple job of driving a curiosity click straight to my client’s engaging and persuasive website.

John Ragals Managing Director 360i

Super Bowl ads are a great opportunity to generate awareness among a mass audience. With many viewers watching as much for the ads as for the game, the Super Bowl is a great (and rare) opportunity to generate awareness and make an impact among a mass audience in television in today’s age of DVRs. This is especially true for brand marketers with large budgets who can afford this opportunity. However, for marketers that need to optimize their media budgets, starting at the bottom of the purchase funnel makes more sense.

Digital advertising that efficiently inserts the marketer’s message directly in the path of the consumer seeking out that information should be maximized first. And search engine marketing is often the most efficient means of reaching those hand-raisers that are interested in your product or service now. Take your hypothetical insurance company that sells policies online for $1,500 per year (I live in N.Y.). Assuming an average cost per click (CPC) of $2 and a conversion rate of two percent, they would generate $37.5 million in premium sales on that $2.5 million spend.

Not a bad directly measurable return on marketing investment.

But that ready-to-buy pool of prospects is only so big. There are only so many people seeking an insurance policy “today.” As diminishing returns are realized, marketers should feed that pool by extending their campaigns to researchers who are interested, but perhaps not quite ready to buy. While many of these researchers may be using search engines, additional reach can be obtained via behavioral targeting, comparison shopping advertising and highly targeted (such as lead-back targeting) advertising opportunities.

When brand awareness and brand consideration becomes the objective, online media campaigns can be an effective way to reach the target audience with a banner or rich media ad that delivers impact. Mass reach can be obtained through portals and ad network buys. Targeted reach is achievable for a fraction of the cost of the Super Bowl spot by purchasing high-index web properties with the added bonus of instantly measurable sales results.

Doug Schumacher President/Creative Director Basement, Inc.

The concept of shooting a $2.5 million wad in 30 seconds does seem pretty reckless. However, I’ll concede that for certain mass market products with hefty marketing budgets, there comes a point where you simply need scale. I’d also contend that relative to many TV buys, the Super Bowl offers considerably more value, again, for the right product.

Consider:

• The entertainment value of Super Bowl advertising is mass culture. People from all walks of life pay attention to the ads.
• It’s virtually TiVo-proof. Practically everyone who ever sees the game sees it live.
• The press value alone of a good spot during the game is a remarkable value-add.
• Ads during the game have a big impact on the original newsgroup, the water cooler.

At this point in time, I don’t think too many people would argue that building strong relationships with and among your customers is something every marketer should be striving for. And there’s also little doubt that the online space is the most valuable tool for building these relationships, both between the company and its customers and among the customers themselves.

So the viral, word-of-mouth potential of Super Bowl advertising actually synchs quite well with the community capabilities of the web.

I’d just argue that most of the advertisers are approaching the process backwards.

They spend their initial efforts creating a great spot, and then maybe, some of them will put up an online experience that tries to leverage that buzz. What they should be doing is spending their first dollar trying to build a great community experience online, and then use the Super Bowl to kick start it.

Any company behind a great Super Bowl commercial has their audience in the palm of their hand. They’ve broken through the barrier of cynicism. The people they’ve been spending so much money to rub elbows with are talking favorably about them. Their potential customers are more primed for business that at any other point.

And it’s at this point that most of these companies fumble the ball.

What I’d recommend is that they start by spending their first dollar online.

Developing communities around their products. Once there’s a strong community platform to build on, then break out the Super Bowl spot to spike the punch.

Great Super Bowl commercials generate a remarkable amount of buzz. And online is the perfect place to leverage it. But because the online component offers the most potential for a real ongoing community, it has to be the one calling the plays.

Mark Silva Principal and Founder Real Branding

The media buy is just one component of this initiative. Most of these advertisers will have online components that extend the engagement and ROI. We believe driving viewers online is a big part of harvesting the massive reach offered by the Super Bowl event. Some creative approaches to ensure online reception from offline activities are:

• cliffhangers -- like Mitsubishi's "See What Happens" prior Super Bowl spot
• titillation -- like go-daddy or Victoria's Secret
• extended value -- music and entertainment downloads with real or social currency value
• character development -- like the Amex Ellen ads, Terry Tates, et cetera.

For the most part, we see companies still treating the digital channel as an after thought or add-on versus leading or being central to the core idea. At these prices however, the days of digital after-thinking are coming to an end.

So, if your challenge was to spend $2.5 million more effectively, I'd argue that for some advertisers looking to go mass fast this may be a good media investment. And, they should have an extra 50 percent or better to execute their message dramatically across all their consumer touchpoints to leverage the investment.

On the same point, in an article last week in the Wall Street Journal ("Budweiser Pulls Out Super Bowl Gimmicks," January 25, 2006), Marlene Coulis, VP Brand Management at Anheuser-Busch makes a great point that the Super Bowl is actually an advertising event with social networking level pickup in the real world around water coolers the following week. The TiVo activity, ad avoidance, leaving the room dynamics you see across other events and shows doesn't happen with the Super Bowl. Plus you get the added bonus of peer discussion after viewing. That argues recall and consideration benefits are higher than nearly any other event or medium.

David L. Smith CEO Mediasmith, Inc.

Assuming availability, I would kick off the plan with takeovers of AOL, MSN and Yahoo Home pages. I would supplement this with home page takeovers of the 5 to 15 most important sites for the target. I would add $100,000 of branded search with Google and 40 to 50 TRPs in cable, all in one day. Much more impact than a Super Bowl spot.

Cory Treffiletti Senior Vice President, Engagement Architect Carat Fusion

$2.4 million is an awful lot of money to spend on one commercial, even if it is the only remaining mass-media event in existence; the Super Bowl is really all that’s left. It aggregates the largest audience of any single media event; it offers an amazing opportunity to introduce a new product from an existing brand that is easily recognized by said mass-audience, and it’s an enviable source of press generation for any marketer.

But is it really worth it?

Maybe. If you want to introduce a new product from an existing brand, it’s the best way to do it and I would spend that money. If you have a new product that is not easily defined or hasn’t been introduced in some other form of media first, then I would stay away.

For a Super Bowl ad to be effective, it must resonate, and for it to resonate you have to create a moment of “a-ha” or a moment of epiphany. There needs to be an instance where the user says, “Oh, I’ve heard about that product.”

If the Super Bowl is your first introduction, then it’s going to have a hard time being effective. You need to start teasing the brand before the Super Bowl with search or print or some other means of getting the name of your product seeded into the mind of the consumer. It needs to have some basis for becoming familiar in order to be considered effective.

All that being said, if you have an existing brand and you want to do an introduction to a large audience, then the Super Bowl is certainly the way to go. I’d spend there if I knew that I had a large budget to work with. It’s the only one of its kind that remains!

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