A Wider Net

Last night’s Super Bowl had its entertaining moments. The historic opening kickoff return for a touchdown was stumped only by the subsequent manic flurry of bouncing fumbles and interceptions. The rain also added a needed degree of uncertainty and drama. But the event also had an unfair number of missed opportunities - on the field, off the field, on television, and online.

I’ll start at the beginning with Billy Joel’s odd rendition of our National Anthem. Here was a (six-time?) Grammy-winner who sounded like he was singing backup to a blues singer that the rest of us could not hear. Apparently he remarked last week that he doesn’t like the Anthem, so maybe he was making some adjustments? Or maybe they should have tapped someone who actually likes the National Anthem and won’t butcher it. Then they could simply let Prince handle the butchering of songs by Foo Fighters, Queen, and Hendrix.

On to the marketing parts. As Super Bowl ads go, I’ll admit that after looking back at the ads at CBS, there were some ads that I enjoyed, but not one felt like the belle of the water-cooler ball. I was surprised to see my favorite electronic device of CES, the Garmin Nuvi, had a Super Bowl ad - but I can’t say I liked it.

On the topic of missed opportunities, I would include a link to the Garmin Nuvi commercial on the official CBS Super Bowl ad website, bit their site doesn’t allow you to link to a video! Also - they’re still using the prehistoric Real Player. Plus, their gallery of Super Bowl ads, heavily promoted on air, isn’t in the front page of Google search results for “Super Bowl Ads”. That’s three strikes for CBS for missed opportunities right there.

YouTube is no fool - they have the ads with direct links (here’s Garmin), and a cool voting page. They’re also near the top of the Google Search. You can embed them in your blog. Well done.

So the ads weren’t really home runs - some were creative (Coke) and some had their shock moments (Bud’s Rock, Paper Scissors, and Snickers). Our favorite repeat Super Bowl Ad Stars, the Bud Clydesdale’s were reduced to a cameo role supporting a dirty-white-dog dalmatian ad.

The video game industry missed a golden opportunity. With Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo in a tight console war, not one was featured in an ad (unless I missed it). Nintendo had the greatest opportunity, after scoring a major upset when their version of Madden Football for the Wii console scored higher critics ratings than the versions for XBOX 360, and PlayStation 3. Nintendo had the opportunity to drop an advertisement just before halftime saying “Critics agree: The best Madden Football game is on the Nintendo Wii” and remind people to turn away from the halftime show, and turn on their Wii and get their party off the couches.

Speaking of halftime and missed opportunities, did anyone notice that Prince opted to cover a bunch of artists but NOT James Brown? Hmmm - seems like Prince may own him a bit of respect.

Back to the ads. The greatest missed opportunity at this years’ Super Bowl was the lack of compelling campaigns driving traffic to the web. It was as if the money spent on air was stubbornly trying to prevent people from spending time online. Online is where all those eyeballs are today, the day after the Super Bowl, so why not have told them where to go online? There were a few website URLs mentioned, and a few online companies like GoDaddy and SalesGenie had their own ads. But there was nothing that really drove traffic other than CBS, who pushed people to watch replays of the ads on their previously mentioned lame video player.

I also didn’t notice one Mooninite in the stadium.

UPDATE: Forrester Analyst Peter Kim on the Superbowl Ads: He reported a similar weakness in integrated ads.