The Social Superbowl
Been trying to get a post up all day and not liking what I’ve written. So I’ll say this: Who Dat Gonna Beat Dem Saints on Sunday? Not the Colts. Maybe Peyton Manning’s commercials. However more than likely, I hope that Social Media has a big win on Sunday. Many major advertiser have opted to invest in Social Media campaigns that aren’t necessarily taking place on this Sunday, but in general the money that might have gone to pay for a 30 second TV spot is now going toward brand awareness in a different aspect and social media in general. For example, most of you have heard about Pepsi devoting it’s former Superbowl budget to it’s Project Refresh and increasing the social aspect of it’s brand. It’s using Social media to advertise the fact that Pepsi is not entirely about getting every dollar out of you to put into their pockets but instead has a significant social awareness policy that they’d like you to know about.
The questions I have are these: will the companies that have been in Superbowl commercials in the past be missed? Will the audience continue the viral campaign that’s out there about the fact that these companies are not spending money on the commercial and instead trying a different approach? Will these companies feel any negative effect by NOT advertising during the Superbowl? Will they focus on a social media campaign during the Superbowl and will it be effective? What will YOU do on Super Sunday? Will you browse Twitter and Facebook during the game? Will you see if there’s any social activity during a commercial break? Will you tweet or update your status during the game? Will you check in on Foursquare prior to arriving at your party or bar? Will brands engage you after the Superbowl with specific reference to the game or to commercials?
On the company/brand aspect, I think an effective strategy would have been to engage your Facebook fans and Twitter followers in the weeks leading up to the Superbowl to either have a ‘sign up for texts during the Superbowl to win something” or follow us and look for tweets during the commercial break for a special announcement. This could be a huge win for a company and more so than paying for a commercial slot. If you can take the eyes of the customer off the tv for 10 seconds, you steal the advertising away from whoever paid for a commercial? You can’t do that if you pay for a commercial yourself, you only compete to be the most memorable commercial of the Superbowl. I also think if you utilized something like “tweet to predict the quarterly and half time scores for a chance to win xx” could be a good way to engage your followers. Maybe bars could have utilized Foursquare to have the “mayor” host a private party at their bar?
I’m sure the talking head of these companies have their strategies in place already. I definitely think it will be hard to utilize an effective social campaign during the Superbowl without paying for some advertising space. The NBA All star game and the finals tried to do some social media advertising campaigns with companies, but I don’t know if they were very effective.
As an end user, I do think that Twitter will be a great forum for me to chat back and forth about the game, maybe broadcast stuff like, “Next play – 40 yard screen pass to Reggie, callin it now!” It’s really no different than sending a text during the game, which I’ve done in years past, except it could be more effective since I can send the tweet out to a larger audience. Had a brand engaged me prior to the Superbowl I might have opened Ubertwitter duringa commerical break and perused to see what said brand had to say about the game or whatever their shpiel was. I don’t really follow a lot of brands though, so I probably won’t do this. I probably will check in on Foursquare and I’ll probably become the mayor of my friends house since I don’t think he’s ever checked in on Foursquare at his house. Sweet, I’ll finally be a mayor!
What are your thoughts on the Social Superbowl? Is this a big challenge this weekend, or does it really not matter and Monday will be like any other Monday for Brands and their social media strategies?
