FREE ESSAY ON SUPERBOWL COMMERCIALS

SUPERBOWL COMMERCIALS

Super Bowl advertising: What really works?
Introduction.
1. Introduction.
Once a year almost the entire U.S. population sits down to watch the same program, the
Super Bowl. But they are also watching scores of brand new commercials. The commercials
they are watching are produced by the best and the brightest in the business using
immense amounts of money.
At a record average of $2.2 million dollars per 30-second spot, 25 percent more than 1999
commercial spots, each commercial is very special or at least should be.( ) Research
shows that Super bowl commercials are recalled at more than double the rate of
commercials run during normal prime time programming. ( ) And with 58 commercials
scheduled, it's important to be special, creative, and original. It would be a colossal
waste of money, after all, if viewers turned sponsors' shill time into opportunities for
refrigerator runs and bathroom breaks.
The Superbowl ads cost $165 million dollars to make and then display. ( ) ABC estimated
130,745,000 people watched the game, making it the fifth-biggest audience for any TV
telecast.
1999's Super bowl game, broadcast by Fox, was watched by 127.5 million. ( )
Commercials aired during the Super Bowl can generate almost as much attention as the
football itself. If the game fails to be comparative early on, there can be significant
fall off in viewers. Advertisers whose commercials air in the fourth quarter of a
lopsided game can take as much of beating as the losing team. The reverse also can be
true, however. If the game is close, no one will be going anywhere and more people will
view the commercials.
Purpose for the study.
The purpose of this study is to determine whether or not it is financially feasible for
Super Bowl advertisers to pay high cost commercials spots shown during the prime time. 
The Super Bowl telecast typically attracts the biggest TV audience of the year and it has
become a showcase for advertising as well, allowing the network that carries it to charge
seemingly endlessly escalating prices. To millions of people, half the fun of watching
the Super Bowl is the commercials. But do people really pay attention to what is
advertised or do they just watch the commercials to find out if they are funny? The study
will focus on audience's retention, and advertising effectiveness.
This study will be a valuable tool for companies that wish to advertise during future
Super bowl events. Advertising companies can utilize this study to evaluate the
effectiveness upon the audience.
II. Methodology.
People can forget advertising very rapidly. So we will wait a week or two before checking
to see if commercials are still having a measurable effect on them. When we contact them
we want to use something that gets through to virtually everybody, everywhere, on the
first try. With today's busy lifestyles, voice mail and answering machines, the telephone
will not be the method of choice. We will do this type of ad tracking by reaching all
types of people everywhere, and we wanted the number who decline to participate to be as
small as possible. 
We will accomplish all these objectives by mailing questionnaires to a nationwide sample
drawn from all households for which an address is available from either an auto
registration or a telephone listing, six days after the Super Bowl. 
First: How many noticed the commercials?
Recognition provides the best measure of intrusiveness because it is the most accurate,
complete and reliable measure of the number that noticed the commercial. It separates the
people who noticed a commercial from those who ignored it, or were never exposed to it,
so we can see if it had any effect on them. It shows if the communication process had a
chance to start. We will also look at a key measure of the information communicated by
the commercials. How many remembered who they were for? Some commercials for jeans and
credit cards did an excellent job getting noticed but not in getting the name across.
Second: How many were affected by the commercials they noticed?
The previous measures only show if the commercial had a chance to affect people. To find
out if it actually did, two types of measures will be used -- likability and diagnostics.
However, if people like a commercial but can't remember who it was for, it can't have an
effect on sales. So, we combine the two in our second basic measure of advertising's
impact: the percent of recognizers that knew who it was for and liked it.
Third: What gives the most bang per buck?
How do these results compare with the number reached and affected by the average
commercial aired on the networks during prime time? On an overall basis, 44 percent of
the Super Bowl commercials reached and affected more people than the average prime-time
network commercial, after allowing for differences in expenditures. So even though the
overall split is close to 50/50, prime network time is a slightly better buy. But the
odds change dramatically when you separate Super Bowl commercials into those that were
only aired on the Super Bowl and those that received a lot of additional airings. That
turns out to be one of the main differences reflected in the two sets of top commercials
listed previously. The first set with the top recognition scores all had a lot of
additional exposure. The amount spent to air a commercial has its biggest effect on
recognition. It accounts for much less of the variation found in the impact advertising
has on those who notice it.
Airing a commercial on the Super Bowl delivers the largest possible number of first-time
exposures. Spending the same amount on any other combination of programs is almost
certain to deliver a substantial number of people who are seeing the commercial for the
second time or the third time, etc.
As expected, the Super Bowl proves most cost efficient in reaching men and sports fans.
But it is also more efficient in reaching college graduates, professionals and
executives, skilled blue-collar workers and those under 30 than it is in reaching their
opposite counterparts. 
Fourth: What approaches worked best?
The mood was far more important than the message, particularly the humor, uniqueness and
the pace. Their messages were not seen as being nearly as persuasive, credible or clear
as in the average prime-time network commercial. Yet these were very successful
commercials, as shown by the above-average impact on purchasing interest.
Advertising tracking. Once commercials are aired, the only way to know if the advertising
is working is tracking research. It's the ultimate acid test of advertising
effectiveness. 
The tracking questionnaire
A well-designed advertising tracking questionnaire will be developed including the
following essential measurements:
-- Unaided and aided brand awareness. The creation and maintenance of brand awareness is
one of the most fundamental (and most valuable) goals of advertising. Advertising can be
effective if it does nothing more than create brand awareness.
-- Advertising message recall. What messages and ideas from the advertising do consumers
remember? Do the remembered messages correspond to the advertising messages that the
advertising was intended to communicate? To ask consumers who are aware of the
advertising whether the advertising communicated each point. Advertising message recall
is measured by an open-ended question, to which respondents give unaided, spontaneous
answers. This question helps determine if the intended messages are getting through to
consumers. Advertising message recall also provides an indication of consumer memory
distortion and learning effects over time. That is, once a commercial starts running,
consumers do not remember everything in it equally. Some elements stick in the memories
of consumers, and other elements fade away. Knowing the elements that have the highest
memory value is of great benefit in improving future creative executions.
-- Demographics. Key demographics such as geography, age, sex, education and income
should always be included. These variables are extremely valuable in analyzing tracking
survey results and in defining the optimal target market for a brand.
Conclusion
What other event, and what other medium besides network television could reach 100+
million men, women and children simultaneously and hold their collective attention for
four
hours? So, despite the rapid emergence of the Internet as an advertising medium and
ever-declining primetime ratings, network television is still the king of all media, at
least for event broadcasts.