It’s been a few days since the Super Bowl and so I ask you this:  How many commercials do you remember?

How about the one for Adam Sandler’s new movie?

Or the one for the Toyota Sequoia?

Fiesta Platters, anyone? 

Okay, so I remembered the Taco Bell commercial, but it was my first job.  It holds a special place in my heart (¡Yo Quiero Taco Bell!).  My point, however, is that there was nothing extraordinary about these ads.  And they certainly didn’t make any attempt to create a connection with the consumer outside of the ad itself. 

While there may be cases in which spending $2.7 million on 30 seconds of airtime might be worthwhile, I tend to think that the money could be better spent on other valuable marketing opportunities – or at least maximized in an integrated marketing strategy.  For the price of nearly $90,000 a second, companies should spread their dollars in a number of different ways that keep the conversation going long after the last “favorite ad” poll is taken. 

Sure, the Super Bowl can be a great platform for kicking off a campaign, engaging a huge audience and creating buzz around your brand.  But if the buzz lives and dies with the Super Bowl, you’ve not only wasted millions of dollars but also missed out on a great opportunity.  Hardly any of the advertisers this year maximized their potential and carried the campaign across a number of platforms.  In fact, according to Reprise Media’s 4th annual Search Marketing Scorecard: 

• -  Only 6 percent of the Super Bowl advertisers gave a call to action in their commercials.
• -  Less than 10 percent have worked the mascot, celebrity or tagline into their paid search terms.
• -  None of the Super Bowl ads pointed to their social media presence on MySpace, YouTube or Facebook.
• -  Less than one-fifth showed Super Bowl-related content on social networks.

 For a long time now, we have talked about the death of the 30-second spot.  If consumers supposedly hate commercials so much, and are instead engaged in social media activities, why spend so much of your marketing budget on one 30-second TV ad?  Many brands are shifting some, if not much, of their advertising budgets to the Web.  Why, then, is the Super Bowl regarded as the one place where it’s okay to plop a very expensive ad on TV screens with no consumer interaction?   

If the fact that few of this year’s Super Bowl advertisers took an integrated, social media approach to the opportunity isn’t enough to prove that millions of dollars were wasted, here are a few other stats to consider. 

For starters, let’s talk numbers.  According to MediaWeek, a recent study by Millward Brown shows that Super Bowl advertisers will see a sales growth of 10 to 15 percent in the week following The Big Game.  Those numbers are compared to a growth of 5 to 10 percent for a normal television ad campaign.  In other words, you may see some increase in sales, but not enough to offset the high price tag.    

In addition, Inc. recently reported that during the 2003 game, ads reached 22,000 households per dollar spent. The same year, ads that ran during “Friends” reached 45,000 households per dollar spent. 

Finally, perhaps most importantly, ad recall is very low for piggyback spots – commercials that use 25 seconds of humor and 5 seconds of brand identification.  Until creative agencies begin to link the humor with the brand story in a natural way, the joke itself will be the only thing remembered at the water cooler Monday morning. 

In the end, companies will continue to spend an exorbitant amount of money on ads for the Super Bowl.   I just wonder when they will begin to recognize the opportunity at hand.  To stop at :30 seems like a waste of time and resources.  Think strategically and continue the conversation.    

What do you think?  Is purchasing ad space during the Super Bowl worth the price tag? Click here to vote, and leave your thoughts below.

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