IMC Hawks Blog

Tag: Super Bowl

  • What’s the Real Show?

    During a regulation NFL game there is a 15 minute break between the 2nd and 3rd quarters. This halftime break was originally instituted so the participants of the game could catch their breath and re-energize. During the Super Bowl, halftime lasts for a minimum of 30 minutes. Not only is that plenty of time for a player to catch his breath, that could allow him an opportunity to take a nap and check some emails. The mid-game break is actually long enough that coaches usually alter practices leading up to the big game in order to prepare their players for dealing with the extended down time. Despite this, there has never been a serious motion to shorten the length of the break. On the contrary, every few years halftime will run a little long to better accommodate the length of more extravagant halftime shows.

    This presents an interesting phenomenon. The Super Bowl, the game that decides who the best team is in the highest level of the most popular sport in America, is consistently interrupted for at least 15 minutes more than is necessary so an assortment of washed up and unknown artists can perform for a crowd that has paid at least double the average monthly income for a ticket to the game. It is widely known that companies spend millions of dollars for a chance to slip a commercial in between the biggest football game of the year, but this event has become so large that the game itself is being postponed in order to make room for the event that surrounds it. That’s the kind of marketing that is normally reserved for religious holidays and national celebrations.

    So what makes the Super Bowl half-time show so special? It is the second most anticipated part of the event, besides of course, who wins the championship.  The hype of who is performing is always a boost for the performers publicity, but what if Madonna blows it like the Black Eyed Peas did last year?  What will that do to her brand as being Madonna, the Queen of pop? There is a lot at stake when involving yourself in the biggest event of the year.  Let’s just hope there are no wardrobe malfunctions or fumbled lyrics this year.

    Read more about the halftime show here!

  • Broderick gets another day off thanks to Honda

    Honda just released an extended Honda CR-V commercial featuring Matthew Broderick on YouTube. The ad makes dozens of references to what could possibly be one of the greatest movies of all time, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It doesn’t even matter whether you were around when this movie was released, every generation recognizes and can relate to this legendary movie. The Honda CR-V might not be a Ferrari but you have to grow up at some point, right?

    It starts off with Broderick calling in sick from a L.A. hotel room. The hotel valet brings around his Honda CR-V, calling out “Broderick….Broderick” instead of economic teacher Ben Stein droning “Bueller…..Bueller.” Broderick is also seen in the stands for a horse race instead of a chicago mets game. He visits the Natural History Museum instead of the Chicago Art Museum. He even ends up in another parade only in China town singing a Mandarin tune rather than Twist & Shout or “Danke Schoen” for the German- American Von Steuben Day parade. Throughout the whole clip you will easily be able to pick out the infamous quotes used in the original movie, ending with “Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once and a while, you’d miss it” as the valet drives off in the CR-V.

    Every 80’s movie geek will be able to appreciate the many other movie references they made during this 2 and 1/2 minute long commercial. Honda promises fans there are more than two dozen references to the movie. They are encouraging people to tweet their friends about it and tweet what they have spotted under the hashtag #dayoff. This commercial will run during the Super Bowl for a 60 second slot, which should be costing them around seven million dollars! Thanks to social media outlets like YouTube, we get an extended version to enjoy the throwback even longer. Using a movie as iconic as Ferris Bueller was a smart marketing trick by using something that resonates with millions of viewers and linking it with the new Honda CR-V.

    -Mollie Berthold, Dorothy Conley, Laura Simmons, Christina Stevenson

  • Will The Force Be With You?

          It’s Super Bowl season and we, as viewers, are ready for the stream of entertaining advertisements that keep us occupied between breaks. I’m sure everyone remembers last years buzz worthy Star Wars inspired Volkswagen commercial. How can one not be enamored with a little boy in a movie quality Darth Vader suit that genuinely startles himself by using “the force” to turn on his dad’s new Volkswagen? Beyond all the cuteness, the commercial relays the push-to-start feature that the affordable (and apparently fun) German car has to offer.
         To top its success from the last Super Bowl, Volkswagen has returned with yet another Star Wars inspired ad and the entertainment factor is undeniable. Yet what do barking dogs and Star Wars really have to do with the German automobile company?
         Advertisers take full advantage of the hype surrounding the Super Bowl to create innovative, touching, and entertaining commercials. Companies will pay extraordinary amounts of money to ensure that their commercial is seen by the millions of viewers watching the game. After all, this one time of the year advertisers can assume that almost every single American is tuning in. What company wouldn’t want their product showcased at this time? It’s like a black Friday Christmas sale for advertisers. These companies want to bring attention to their product in anyway possible, even if that means their product isn’t even mentioned until the last three seconds.
         In the Volkswagen ad, the viewer is unaware of the association between Volkswagen and Star Wars until the very end. This proved to be a very strategic move on VW’s part. Last year, companies were able to monitor which commercials made the biggest impact on viewers via Twitter, FaceBook and other popular social platforms. They measured the ad’s success by the number of times it was mentioned in the digital realm and were able to realize what struck a chord with the vast audience. What once seemed to be a hail marry concept of integrating marketing, advertising, and social media, is now an easy field goal for the IMC commercial championship. Volkswagen is betting that we will remember how fond we were of last year’s Star Wars theme and associate those same feelings with their brand this year as well. You can’t go wrong with puppies and kids, right?
    -Alexis Kapczynski, Kacy Cox, Sara Kaloudis, Josh Bowman

  • Price Tag on a Super Bowl Ticket? Not for these fans.

    It seems fans whose plans were altered by seating issues at this years Super Bowl have filed a lawsuit against the NFL. Go figure. The lawsuit also targets specifically the Dallas Cowboys and owner Jerry Jones and alleges a breach of contract, fraud, and deceptive sales practices. The massive group of fans, as many as a thousand people, are pushing for a collective gain up to $5 million from the NFL. While some of these fans pushing for the lawsuit are legit (400 fans did not even get a seat for the game), others seem to be coming off as a bit forced such as season-ticket holders who weren’t aware that they would be in “temporary seats”.

    Perhaps the NFL’s biggest problem stemmed from an inadequate offer that would have given the displaced fans $2,400 and even a ticket to next year’s Super Bowl, airfare and hotel included. But clearly this just is not good enough for these fans who felt gipped out of their paid-for seats. Apparently the NFL should have made these fans an offer they couldn’t refuse, at least up front, and now they will really have to pay for it. Clearly, the NFL cannot afford to get into a legal battle with these angry fans as it would lead to nothing more than a public relations disaster and a huge blow to the brand. It is no secret now that the league is to blame for the seating fiasco. So now in order to evade future damage to sales efforts and brand integrity and credibility, the NFL needs to do whatever it now takes to keep its faithful customers.

    Apparently there is no price tag on a Super Bowl ticket for these fans and they show no signs of dropping the issue. It seems at this point, the main hope for the NFL is that this story gets out of the media as fast as possible, and without further damage to the brand and future marketing and sales efforts and profits.

    -Eric Holtzman, Chad Graves, Ryan Kelley, Maxann Keller, Katelyn Truss

  • Super Bowl Mixed With Red and Pink Flowers?

    Super Bowl XLV had 111 million viewers throughout the entire game, but it doesn’t stop there.  “A record-breaking 169.2 million people tuned in to the program for at least a portion of the game” according to Fox News.  With this many people, and a majority of the audience being male, what else could be better than reminding men about Valentine’s Day?  The game is played a week before V-day, still allowing the men with crushes, significant others, and spouses to order flowers and various other red and pink gifts.

    The Super Bowl submerges men into drinking beer with their buddies, talking about football and, thanks to Go-Daddy commercials, hot chicks.  Teleflora was able to combine all these aspects into an effective, realistic and catchy commercial.  Speaking on behalf of the female population, men are stereotyped into not knowing how to express their feelings, especially around Saint Valentine’s Day.  In the commercial, the guy expresses his feelings for Kim in a not-so-romantic way; “your rack is unreal” doesn’t really scream romance.

    Teleflora’s effectiveness of this commercial is outstanding.  Targeting men and illustrating a guys perspective on Valentine’s Day and translating that into the beauty of flowers is what the overall audience of the Super Bowl will enjoy.  Comical, yet true, this commercial and Teleflora as a company, will be remembered.

    -Lauren DeHart

  • [Black & Yellow] VS. [Green & Yellow]

    Thanks to the infamous song “Black and Yellow” by notorious rap artist Wiz Khalifa, the Pittsburgh Steelers find themselves with a bit of a theme song going into their seventh super bowl appearance this weekend. Khalifa is a Pittsburgh native who wrote the song to represent the main colors of the sports teams of the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This interesting method of branding the city of Pittsburgh through the city’s athletic team’s main colors has brought a lot of attention to the Pittsburgh Steelers now that they are playing in the Super Bowl once more.

    Branding has been a driving force within the confines of IMC since the mid 1980’s when competition among products began to drastically increase. Without branding, a car is just a car, a school is just a school, and a football team is just a football team. There is no room for differentiation and no reason for a consumer to choose one over the other.  Each individual brand demands the support of loyal customers, and in this case, fans. Placing such emphasis on the color of the teams creates a more recognizable brand. Just upon hearing the words “black and yellow” fans feel a sense of ownership and camaraderie.

    Just to stimulate things even more, their opponent’s main colors are Green & Yellow. The Green Bay Packers are just as historic, prolific, and nationally recognized as the Steelers and naturally one could anticipate that it would only be a matter of time before imitations and remixes of the song “Black and Yellow” would be replaced with “Green and Yellow.” Sure enough, one of the most famous remixes has been done by two young men known as Pizzle and Prophetic titled “Green and Yellow” (See video below). The video already has garnered over 200,000 views on YouTube in just its second week. As this intense and historic competition between the two cities escalates, sides will be chosen with the question, “Black & Yellow or Green & Yellow?”

    -Katie Eagle, Deji Adeleke, Anna Kate Babnik, Tiffany Evans, and Carissa Niederkorn

  • Social Media and the Super Bowl

    How do you analyze the popularity of Super Bowl commercials and the companies that produced them? One way is to check the fans and followers that each company has on their Facebook and Twitter accounts. That is exactly what Clickz ,an internet resource for interactive marketing news and information, did to interpret the success of individual commercials and how they relate to brands that own them.

    The Super Bowl isn’t just a platform for NFL superstars to show they are the best; it also represents the top competition among brands and their advertisements. Clickz recorded the number of Facebook “fans” and Twitter “followers” for each of the advertisers on February 2, Super Bowl Sunday. Then the site collected data a week later to see what kind of increases took place. Evidence from the research reveals that the Super Bowl ads actually boosted some advertisers’ social media accounts considerably.

    According to the research analysis some of the big hitters in the big media dance include HomeAway, Volkswagen, E*Trade and Monster.com. These companies were among half of the Super Bowl advertisers that mentioned their commercials on either their Facebook pages or through their Twitter accounts prior to the game.

    “”By incorporating a dedicated Facebook page, Twitter account, and micro-site as part of the ‘Fiddling Beaver’ campaign,” according to Kathy O’Reilly, director of social media for Monster.com, “we were able to engage with folks before Super Bowl Sunday.”

    Social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter have been great building blocks to cultivate a larger fan base among the consumers. These websites have built a bridge over the gap that once existed between companies and their consumers. However, what is the return of investment? What kind of sales come out it? This question will be asked until there is a legitimate connection between ‘fans’ of the brand and the purchasing consumers of brand  products and services.

    -Jesse Bazemore