Marketers Generating Super Bowl Buzz With And Without a Buy

Advertising in the Super Bowl represents one of the best deals in TV, according to Initiative. The Interpublic agency went on the road to pitch the big game to clients and to explain why its never been a better time to drop almost $3 million on a single thirty second ad spot.

The agency bought ten spots for clients such Hyundai/Kia, Dr. Pepper, Visio (the only brand to gain attention as a trending topic on Twitter during the game) and FloTV. Initiative placed the second largest number of ad spots on Super Bowl, behind only to OMD.

“We believe the Super Bowl is more powerful today then ever before,” says Kris Magel, executive VP and director of national broadcast at Initiative. Why? Before the advent of digital the game generated huge awareness and advertisers capitalized on that, but the impact was more finite. Today digital has the ability to capture the demand created, draw people down the purchase funnel and involve consumers in a more robust way.

Initiative has been creating marketings version of surround sound. It had clients booked into the pre-game show as well as in the event. Visio, an HD TV brand, sponsored the pregame show from 5:30 p.m. until 6 p.m. while Hyundia sponsored the following half hour and was in poll position in the pre-kick ad break which costs around of the price of an in-game spot. Beyond that Initiative is activating all manner of media before and after the event.

Smart advertisers use the Super Bowl as a loud speaker for all the other things they’re doing. Magel explains the agency also uses cable to magnify the marketing buying.  ESPN and NFL Network are also beneficiaries of Super Bowl spill over. Another Initiative client, Turbo Tax, is doing a massive take-over unit with ESPN and websites AOL, Yahoo, and other portals to draw buzz, even without being in the game.

And that leads us to Pepsi, which this year opted out of the Super Bowl, in favor of a $20 million social media campaign that will also involve Hulu, MTV and NBC Universal in major ways. Second to the Focus on Family ad spot staring Tim Tebow, Pepsi is the most talked about company in relation to the Super Bowl. According to Nielsen, Tebow gained 33.4% of all Super Bowl buzz in January, Pepsi garnered 20.8% while ManCrunch, a gay dating site, gained 6% of buzz and Doritos gained 3%. Budweiser, typically dominates Super Bowl buzz fell at the bottom of end of results garnering just 1% of the Super Bowl talk.

When asked why Pepsi didnt do Super Bowl this year, the drink won’t be in the game, but its sister brand Doritos will be - Bonin Bough, global director of digital and social media at PepsiCo., explained the game wasnt right for its current campaign. Pepsi Refresh Project is a cause marketing effort aimed at giving away money to fund efforts that have garnered the most support from social media sites. Bough said the project was about creating a movement, not a moment. “We love the fact people are talking about it.  We use that lens and when we look at tactics.   This program was not the right fit.”  Even so, Pepsi is using Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez to talk about his pet causes. Pepsi’s Refresh campaign aims to draw people in to campaign for their favorite causes which Pepsi will fund if they can win support on social media platforms.

The early buzz data makes one thing clear: controversy drives conversation, said Pete Blackshaw, executive VP of digital strategy at The Nielsen Company in a statement. Both the anti-abortion ad and the gay-themed ad have triggered significant levels of conversation.