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The Super Bowl Ads: 9 Inexpensive Lessons for the Rest of Us

Super Bowl Ads Wix
(Reading Time: 7 minutes)

Who won Super Bowl LI? Besides the Patriots, that is.

For starters, Fox did pretty well. Days before the game, a Fox exec crowed, “We are going to finish with the highest revenue day in Fox history.”

When you sell dozens of Super Bowl ads for $10 million per minute, there’s probably a pretty good pizza party in the break room.

So advertisers must have done well too, right? Not so fast.

Communicus, a research firm, has conducted several studies of the effectiveness of Super Bowl ads. Their findings? Only about one advertiser in five actually builds its brand.

There’s a danger: Those of us without super-sized marketing budgets might be blinded by the hype. We might be inclined to believe that things like “likeability scores” matter. They don’t. Continue reading “The Super Bowl Ads: 9 Inexpensive Lessons for the Rest of Us”

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If You Want Action, Start by Simplifying

Simplifying Stacks of Paper
(Reading Time: 2 minutes)

In my professional career, I have seen, with my own eyes:

  • A binder of over 200 pages meant to explain “our brand idea.”  (“Just absorb these 30,000 words, and you’ll get it.”)
  • A presentation by an agency president to his employees, listing 19 strategic priorities.  (“Our success depends on only 19 things!  Memorize them all!  Now get to work, and good luck.”)
  • An 80-page marketing plan.

That last one was my own creation, by the way.  Very early in my career, I mistakenly equated volume with quality.  Fortunately, I had a boss who set me straight.  After patiently allowing me to walk through all 80 pages, he asked a series of smart, pointed questions.  Among them:

Continue reading “If You Want Action, Start by Simplifying”
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Your Brand Is Not as Great as You Think It Is (And What to Do About That)

Brand Perceptions Cartoon

(Reading Time: 4 minutes)Here’s a statistic that I wouldn’t believe had I not measured it myself: 100% of my friends are excellent drivers.

I’m serious. You can ask them. Better yet, ask your friends for their assessments of their own driving skills. You’ll probably record a similar number.

I can find you a bunch of statistics like this.

In one survey of university faculty, over 90% rated themselves “above average” in terms of teaching ability. That’s right – 90% of these professors placed themselves in the top 50%. Continue reading “Your Brand Is Not as Great as You Think It Is (And What to Do About That)”

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Super Bowl 50: 7 Lessons for Challenger Brands

Super Bowl Ads Challenger Brands

(Reading Time: 5 minutes)About five million dollars. That’s the cost for one of this year’s 30-second Super Bowl ads.

For most of us who lead challenger brands, that kind of outlay simply isn’t in the realm of possibility. As underdogs, we’re used to doing more with less.

The Super Bowl – and, in particular, the hype surrounding its ads – is perhaps the greatest example in business of flawed thinking on a grand scale. Though attention is heightened during the big game, viewers are primarily looking to be entertained. (This is how we get a Bud Light ad with “caucus” jokes. Oof, you are so ribald!)

Of course, ads that entertain don’t necessarily sell. And challenger brands know that it’s all about selling.

So let’s talk about what the rest of us can learn from this year’s Super Bowl ads. Continue reading “Super Bowl 50: 7 Lessons for Challenger Brands”

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The Most Important Strategic Question You Can Ask

Most Important Strategic Question

(Reading Time: 3 minutes)We’ve all seen them: The pipe dreams that are presented as “strategic plans.” Plans that seem to have no tether to reality. Plans that nobody believes in (but that somehow get approved).

There are many reasons such unrealistic plans survive. The organization may encourage activity, not results. Leadership may not be grounded in the planning process, and are thus unable to guide it. Politics may replace objectivity. And so on.

No matter the roots of the issue, I’ve found that one question is particularly useful in making a huge leap toward strategy that truly works.

That question is four short words: Continue reading “The Most Important Strategic Question You Can Ask”

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“The Perfect Beer for (Insert Anything Here)”: Bud Light and Empty Claims

(Reading Time: 3 minutes)to thisWhile visiting Northeastern Ohio over the holidays, I came across cans of Bud Light that were customized in Cleveland Browns colors. The cans featured the following slogan:

“The Perfect Beer for Being Dawg Pound Proud”

Bud Light loves the Browns!
Bud Light loves the Browns!

(For those that may not know, the Dawg Pound is the nickname for the bleacher seats behind the east end zone of FirstEnergy Stadium, where the most fervent Browns fans congregate.)

My first reaction to this slogan was that it couldn’t have been written by anyone familiar with the team. I’ve been a Browns fan all my life, and “proud” is not a word we’re using these days. “Justifiably outraged” is more like it; the Browns have just one winning season in the last 13, and have lost 18 of their last 21 games.

My second reaction was: Continue reading ““The Perfect Beer for (Insert Anything Here)”: Bud Light and Empty Claims”

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What Challenger Brands Can Learn From Ronda Rousey’s Stunning Loss

Ronda Rousey Holly Holm Challenger Brands

(Reading Time: 3 minutes)It was the greatest upset in Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) history.

Rousey entered Saturday night’s fight as the bantamweight champion. She was undefeated – 12-0 with 9 arm-bar submissions. Her prior three fights had lasted 34, 14 and 16 seconds. (Those aren’t typos.)

By the end of the night, the belt belonged to Holm, about a 10-to-1 underdog before the fight began. Holm knocked out Rousey less than a minute into the second round with a vicious kick to the head. But Rousey was losing the fight badly before that.

What can challenger brands learn from this shocking upset? Continue reading “What Challenger Brands Can Learn From Ronda Rousey’s Stunning Loss”