Michael Barrett Executive Vice President AOL Media Networks

Marketers have used :30 second spots in the Super Bowl predominantly as a vehicle to cume a huge audience. Last year, the Super Bowl on TV reached approximately 86 million people with a 31 rating, down nine percent versus 10 years ago (Nielsen Media Research Feb 2005, Feb 1996). Marketers typically translate that reach into engagement by generating the most creative spots possible.

Forgetting about the formal measure of ROI, a Super Bowl ad is a success if it creates “water cooler talk.” The ultimate victory: Letterman, Katie, and the local newscaster are talking about it the next day. And the drivers against that measure of success are creativity and shock factor.

But, the question is: is that real engagement? Or is simply a buzz-worthy stunt? And, can you achieve the same reach but drive more engagement and more relevance to consumers through other media strategies?

There is no question that the broadcast medium can deliver reach quickly and have immediate impact. It’s a critical element of the overall media mix. But, let’s take a look at what $2.5 million might do in the online environment and see where we can potentially push the ball further.

Here are some of the key differentiators looking at online in comparison to a television Super Bowl ad:

• Creativity. If creativity drives buzz, then we want to take full advantage of the possibilities. Online not only enables us to use video creative in :15 and :30 formats, but it also enables us to bring it to life, adding new dimensions to brands and characters. And, because online advertising isn’t delivered in a linear, back-to-back commercial environment, there is so more opportunity for creativity to stand apart in an uncluttered experience.
• Interaction. Interactivity is, of course, the quintessential differentiator of online. But interactivity goes beyond the simple concept that the consumer can “click” on the ad. The online medium enables consumers to participate with the marketer’s brand, to express it as their own and to share it with their own social network.
• Participation. For a marketer, a participatory medium means that advertising can go beyond just “creating buzz” -- the advertising interaction can make online the “place of buzz,” truly creating dialogue around a brand, service, or products activating user-generated content and social networks.
• Getting the dollars to work harder for marketers. A $2.5 million dollar campaign online not only cumes an audience equal to or greater than the Super Bowl, but it can also add continuity and frequency to drive impact, extending beyond 30 seconds of fame.
• Accountability. Another key advantage of the medium is its measurability. Marketers can take their online advertising and through ad effectiveness studies immediately translate performance into specific measures of key objectives like branding lift or offline sales for a consumer packaged goods advertiser, for example.

$2.5 million on AOL Media Networks can reach approximately 90 million uniques (and that’s U.S. reach -- not just internet reach) with a 5.6 frequency 90 (comScore Media Metrix Reach and Frequency Dec 2005, Internal AOL analysis), neck and neck with the 86 million people who saw the Super Bowl last year.

But again, high impact marketing must go beyond high reach buzz to drive engagement and relevance for brands. Online is the medium best poised to deliver those objectives within the specific context of a marketer’s business goals.

Let’s take a quick look of some of the strategies and tactics that might make that $2.5 million go beyond just buzz (and they all can be tailored to execute on different marketing strategies and objectives):

• Home page video ad takeover. Using some of the highest reach vehicles on the our network like AOL’s Welcome Screen, AOL.com, Netscape, MapQuest, and AIM, AOL can take the video creative of brands who typically advertise in the Super Bowl and run the video commercials as high impact stunts through top layer rich media technologies. This past January, we took :10 creative from Intel for their Viiv brand and ran it across all editorial and advertising windows of the AOL.com home page forming a multi-screen video wall effect.
• Bringing the characters and brand to life. We can then extend the interaction by bringing the brand or characters to life. Imagine if the Budweiser Frogs were icons you could use to express yourself in the buddy list on AIM complete with sound effects…or if they had AIM screen names that you could IM or email to get preprogrammed humorous responses…or if they were the guest VJ on our music video countdown show…or if they had their own radio station on AOL Radio…or if you could go to AOL Journals to read their blogs...or you could download their podcast…
• Participation. To take the “buzz” factor of Super Bowl and extend it, imagine if the home page video ad takeover were extended with a ticker that ran across all the channels of AOL.com. Just before Christmas, AOL ran a Holiday Wishlist ticker sponsored by Target where users could post their wishes for all the world to see. If we think about a brand like Dove, who often advertises in the Super Bowl, they could express their platform around real people and enable that broad self expression across our entire network through the ticker.
• Local activation. To complement the national buzz, we can activate a local component by integrating the promotion through properties like MapQuest, City Guide, movie showtimes, and our Weather listings to bring the concept home. Big Super Bowl advertisers like Pizza Hut, Nationwide, Subway, Pizza Hut, Cadillac or Ford could integrate store or dealer locators as well as local promotions.
• Deep Vertical Integration. To drive even more relevance for advertisers, we can complement high reach plays with deep integration within a passion point of the target audience. If music is highly relevant to the brand, the brand can be infused into a highly interactive, next generation experience like Top 11 Countdown, where the flash programming enables us to do triggered events on the screen or enables consumers to adopt branded skins from advertisers, as we’ve done recently for brands like Verizon, Coke or Motorola Razr.

The bottom line is that $2.5 million is a tremendous opportunity to not only deliver reach, but engagement and relevance, and online is well poised to help a broad base of consumers to make the brand their own.

Aaron Cohen CEO Bolt Media

If you can make an ad that positively engages the media I think the Super Bowl is a tremendous advertising vehicle. Better than a bunch of Yahoo home pages or 250,000 clicks on Google. The media rehashes these ads for two or three days after the game, giving you much bigger bang. The remote doesn't get used during the Super Bowl; the audience heightens their awareness, and TiVo is a non-factor -- unless Mick and Keith plan a clothing surprise (shudder).

Cameron Death Director, Branded Entertainment and Experiences Team Microsoft Corporation

It’s naïve to call $2.5M for one spot an entire waste -- the mix will always require high-impact media at its base, and it’s premature to say broadcast impact has eroded to the level of imperceptible return that many have stated in the past 12 months.

That said, as marketers we have to get away from measuring Super Bowl impact purely by the level of buzz we drive in the ad trades the day after the game -- that’s not consumer marketing, it’s trade PR; and I often question which of those two factors is leading the decision.

And $83,000 a second? I’d personally have a hard time approving that when, in the literal blink of the collective eye, the buy poses a risk of losing all impact.

So what would I do with the $2.5M? It may sound like Marketing 101 (and perhaps we should commit to dusting off those textbooks for 2006), but we’ve got to create opportunities for consumers to have longer-term and deeper involvement with the brand in an environment where there is an equal exchange of value.

As marketers at MSN, we’ve created opportunities to reach consumers at volumes far greater than the Super Bowl, engaging them for periods measured in dozens of minutes, not fractions of seconds and that live for months, not during a bathroom break on February 5.

We’ve seen repeated success in developing immersive and rewarding experiences for consumers -- destinations that they depart from with a feeling that the brand created true value for them.

And that value cannot be defined or measured as a stifled laugh at the punch line of a :30.

With the online medium, we have the luxury of building immersive experiences that can truly provide value over an extended period of time for the consumer. I’m not referring to a banner on a page, but instead the ability to create a destination that’s memorable to the consumer, impacts the brand and leaves the consumer satiated by the experience.

When was the last time you, as a consumer, felt satiated by a :30?

And (and here’s where the proverbial “magic” happens), when done well consumers choose to return, choose to engage deeper with the content, choose to learn more about the brand and chose to become advocates.

Today, the Super Bowl :30 still holds its canonical place in the advertising scriptures. However, the value and return on creating a longer-term online dialogue and deeper involvement with the brand at the same level of scale that truly creates an equal exchange of value with the consumer is something any responsible marketer looking to create buzz in the marketing trades the day-after coverage should move to the top of their priorities.

Mark Friedler CEO and co-founder Gigex, Inc./GameDAILY

With $2.5 million we could buy four small companies, hire six more people and build out four key areas of functionality on our site. The result would be increasing our traffic and user base by eight million unique users and probably generating an additional $4 million of annual revenue. I'll be happy to speak with an advertiser about an investment opportunity instead of blowing that money in 30 seconds!

Peter Horan CEO AllBusiness.com

It's crazy time in the media marketplace again. Super Bowl ads have topped $2.5 million, and some of America's best known companies including Ford, Budweiser and Sony Pictures have stepped up to buy seats on the fifty yard line.

But all they're buying is good tickets to a bad show.

Most big companies are seriously over-invested in television-- especially network TV. Americans are spending more time on focused cable networks and the internet-- but media budgets don't reflect this. Madison Avenue is lagging Main Street by five years or more. (To understand this phenomenon better, check out the new Middletown research study by Dr. Robert Papper of Ball State University).

If I was a Ford share holder, in particular, I'd question this "investment" at a time when the company is laying off 30,000 workers to be more efficient.

But $2.5 million isn't much to change the fate of Ford or most of the other advertisers. To have maximum impact, I would give each company a brain transplant. I'd use the money to hire an all-star team of the smartest people I could find on search engine marketing, new media, and web publishing and support them for two years. I'd give them the organizational mandate to overhaul my complete marketing program and make my company the smartest marketer in our industry.

And then, I'd send out for a pizza and watch the Super Bowl on television.

Peter Naylor Senior Vice President, Sales iVillage

First, I would spend money on incremental training for our employees (sales training, management training, negotiation training, you name it). When you invest in people's skill sets they reward you with productivity and loyalty. Next, an investment in a set of research projects that would bring us new insights about our audience that we could share with our customers to help make them successful. Finally, I'd sponsor programs with every regional interactive media association in the country. Those groups are full of people who are dedicated to our industry and they deserve support.

Matt Wasserlauf President and CEO Broadband Enterprises

The timing of that question is particularly good for those lending an informed eye to the streaming video space. Broadband is the place to go with a $2,500,000 budget if you are a major brand advertiser for three reasons.

First, broadband delivers return on investment. Every impression is clickable and interactive -- while the same impression on TV is not. We are seeing clickthrough rates across The Broadband Enterprises Network hover around two percent. That’s return!

Second, broadband offers major brand marketers the option to use the same powerful and emotive video spot they use on-air, online-- to a captive audience. Our audience is tuned in and getting the message.

Lastly, the broadband medium, while still growing at a rapid rate, has the critical mass for a major marketer to move into with a TV budget. 100,000,000 viewers are watching broadband and consuming roughly 4 billion streams per month. For your $2.5 million, a marketer can capture an 18 percent share of voice across the entire Broadband medium for the entire week of the Super Bowl. That’s not only a beneficial reach, but also an optimal frequency.

Rather than one and done in the Super Bowl, this powerful video message will garner a longer life, reaching a lot of captive users that can now click on, learn more and buy the marketers product in one fell swoop!

Now that’s what I would do with $2.5 million.

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