Rumors abound about the death of television advertising, but that hasn't stopped a legion of national advertisers from lining up to purchase airtime during the National Football League's 2006 national championship game, Super Bowl XL. The ABC television network was this year's lucky broadcast bidder and, without the help of heavy discounting, had sold 85% of the available ad slots as of the beginning of January. Advertisers have reportedly paid up to $2.5 million for 30-seconds, compared to $2.4 million in 2005. While it's not much of a price increase, given the beating TV advertising has taken this year in most marketing budgets, the fact that it's held steady is pretty amazing.

Most marketers will tell you that to get an immediate mass reach for their message, there's still no better value than network TV. No matter who's vying for football's national title, the Super Bowl regularly logs the largest one-night TV audience of the year. "Increasing media options have so fragmented the TV audience that networks consider a smash hit to be any show that draws 25 million viewers," explained the Wall Street Journal. "The Super Bowl routinely is watched by roughly 90 million people." What's more, no matter the demographic, sociographic, or psychographic background of your targeted buyer, chances are it's represented in the big game's vast viewing audience. Male and female; young and old; rich and poor; white, black, Hispanic, and Asian; CEOs and line workers—they all watch it. "Even people who don't care about the game want to be a part of it in some way because it's so big," said General Motor's director of entertainment and sports sponsorship. The Super Bowl is one of—if not the only—remaining programs with true mass audience appeal.

Now to the question of the hour: does the Super Bowl offer an effective way to communicate with customers and prospects? It certainly could. It goes without saying (at least it should) that the better an ad execution balances entertainment with communication of a "reason to buy" message, the more effective the ad is as a form of communication and the greater the return on investment, no matter the medium. Back to the Super Bowl specifically, companies with a general consumer buyer target, national distribution, and a product or service that viewers more naturally associate with watching a football game (beer, soda, chips, nuts, fast food, ESPN) or attending a party (deodorant, soap, personal grooming) will likely see a better recall of their ad than companies with a B2B target (shipping services, consulting, internet hosting) or product or service that doesn't normally cross the mind when watching a game (mortgages, insurance, phone services, career services).

Super Bowl advertisers who run promotions or events to coincide with the game in addition to an ad during it can also improve the probability that viewers will recall their brand and message (assuming there is a message). "Many marketers have figured out that the money goes a lot farther when you build out a campaign around that spot," wrote Ad Age in a recent article on advertisers' plans for Super Bowl XL, "including buying up search terms online so folks who type in, say, 'monkey ads' get to Careerbuilder.com, which will once again this year feature an office full of chimps in its spot." As another example, GM has wrapped its Detroit corporate headquarters with the "Super Bowl XL" logo (the game takes place in Detroit) and plans to have 100 of the SUVs it plans to advertise driving around Detroit's streets prior to the game. It will also give away a car to the game's most valuable player following the game in a televised award ceremony.

Leveraging the promotional opportunity the Super Bowl represents and building on advertising that will air during the event could conceivably enhance awareness and overall performance, especially with a multitude of advertisers—many of whom may be competitors in a marketer's category—trying to get viewers to remember their brand in the days, weeks, and months afterwards. But if marketers feel they must commit significant resources to events, promotions, and more advertising to promote that they will be advertising during the game—in other words, advertising their ads—we have to question the effectiveness, not to mention the efficiency, of their Super Bowl ad buy.

"We have to find ways to break through the clutter," the marketing director for Emerald Nuts told the Wall Street Journal recently, explaining why the company, which plans to air only one spot during the game, bought print ads in the New York Times and USAToday and has banner ads on its website reminding viewers to look for its ad. Careerbuilder.com has banner ads on its website telling visitors to watch its Super Bowl ads and plans an email campaign to pre-promote its commercials spots. To drum up attention for its ads for Degree antiperspirant, Unilever already sent a pre-game press kit to select reporters which included swag such as a $250 Sony Playstation Portable videogame machine that plays the pre-loaded commercial. "We did it to grab attention," explained the company's PR agency. "There is a lot of competition out there."

It was bad enough that some advertisers were passing on the Super Bowl to avoid any potential negative coverage of their advertising, opting for other programs including the Winter Olympics where "there is no scrutiny about the creative level of commercials," as one media agency executive told AdWeek. We guess this executive and his or her clients don't consider low recall scores and/or lack of consumer awareness of the ad, brand, positioning message "creative scrutiny;" just as long as the USAToday and Ad Age's Bob Garfield don't write bad things about it. But, if after plunking down $2.5 million for an ad slot plus $300K+ or so to develop and produce the creative execution itself, Super Bowl advertisers feel they need to spend more money to get people to watch and pay attention to their ads, they really ought to rethink their media purchase.

Albeit to varying degrees, America's "Big Three"—GM, Ford, and Chrysler—are troubled companies. All three have recently made announcements to cut jobs and decrease manufacturing capacity, while pledging to focus on building strong brands and poduct line-ups. GM's CEO Rick Wagoner assured shareholders in June 2005 that reducing staff was just one priority for the company; defining the firm's eight brands and increasing spending on new cars and trucks were others. "We cannot play the same the old way," Bill Ford, Ford's chairman told the Wall Street Journal in an interview after he announced the details of "The Way Forward," Ford's restructuring plan. "Our product plans for too long were defined by our capacity. From now on, our vehicles will be designed to satisfy the customer, not just fill a factory." "Our objective in taking these actions is to create a lean, agile structure, with streamlined and stabled processes that will unleash DaimlerChrysler's full potential," Dieter Zetsche, chairman of DaimlerChrysler, announced in a well-timed statement coming on the heels of Ford's much more significant job-cut news. "We're going to build a strong product portfolio," he pledged.

Though Detroit's heavy hitters suffer from a myriad of marketing problems, their product strategy is one of the most glaring. Henry Ford supposedly once quipped that his customers could buy a Ford in any color they wanted as long as long as it was black, and his product-first-customer-second mentality became quite entrenched in the Auto City. Sure, there have been product hits in recent years—industry experts point to GM's Chevy HHR and Pontiac Solstice, Ford's revival Mustang, and Chrysler's PT Cruiser and Chrysler300, for instance. Yet with a portfolio that, by all appearances, continues to rely heavily on big pickup trucks and SUVs, the companies come across as out of step with the needs of many, if not most, U.S. car buyers who seem more concerned about fuel efficiency than towing 18 tons of cargo with the help of a Hemy engine. How do we get Americans to consider and buy a GM, Ford, or Chrysler? Big Three's answer: "With incentives, rebates, discounts, and price cuts of course!" This price-centric approach to driving sales hasn't helped change the perception among industry analysts and car buyers alike that GM, Ford, and Chrysler lack compelling, high quality vehicles that people want—they're practically giving them away, after all.

To date, GM, Ford, and Chrysler have fallen in with the 99% of other brands which develop and launch products and supporting marketing campaigns designed without a serious buyer problem in mind. The result, as we've seen, has been modest effects on sales, negligible ROI, and zero impact on brand equity. The Big Three's recent product successes have rung up sales during a launch year, but none have had a profound effect on the view many car buyers have of American cars and that's what American car companies desperately need. Contrast "normal" new products with what we call "breakthrough" new products, those designed to address a very serious buyer problem. Breakthrough products and their supporting marketing campaigns have a substantial effect on sales and profitability, an ROI of 25% and higher, and a dramatic impact on brand equity. Moreover, these products get people talking—not because they are paid to (a tactic GM is currently attempting)—but because their lives have changed for the better. These products change attitudes and have carry-over effects that last for a generation or more.

Ford's recent TV ads say "Innovation is leading the way," but if the Big Three want to build breakthrough products that raise profits and the stature of American car companies, they need to seriously rethink how they currently develop new products and the campaigns to promote them. They should start by asking themselves the following five questions:

1. Are our products/services designed with the specific target and positioning in mind?
2. Was our rationale for selecting these targets based on fact (i.e., rigorous analysis of unimpeachable data) vs. gut-instinct?
3. Do we undertake serious research and analysis to determine which of many alternative positioning strategies is the best (i.e., most compelling and feasible for us to deliver) opportunity?
4. Did we develop our product or service with a solution to a serious buyer problem or pain in mind?
5. Before introducing a new product, do we examine and test a constellation of alternative configurations of features and prices in terms of sales potential and pofitabilitity, not just appeal?

If they want to develop breakthrough products, the Big Three need to put the processes, systems, structures, and people in place to ensure that the answer to all of these questions is a resounding "yes."

Innovation can be cool. Innovation can be fun. But the road ahead for the Big Three should be paved in product innovations that solve serious customer problems. GM, Ford, and Chrysler have many marketing issues to address in the months and years ahead, but if they start by aligning their product strategy with targeting and positioning strategy, car buyers and their problems, they will be in a much better position to turn their ambitions of building stronger brands into reality.

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Sponsorships and events continue to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the exodus away from traditional media. IEG, a sponsorship industry information resource, estimates North American companies will increase spending by double-digits—the first time since the go-go days of dot-coms—to $13.39 billion this year alone. A recent Intellitrends Survey from the Event Marketing Council reports that more than 22% of the total marketing budget is devoted to events, a number that is consistent across industries. "The sponsorship and events industry has evolved from the 1980's when we delivered signs and hospitality," explains Mike Reisman, principal of Velocity Sports & Entertainment, a pioneering sponsorship marketing firm. "Today we are the funnel for reallocated marketing expenditures." He cautions, however, that while "marketers have enjoyed a significant growth in sponsorship and event options to marry to the needs of their brands, this has put a premium on the process of properly identifying investments for their event and sponsorship portfolios."

In addition to different research approaches to evaluate the short-term and long-term ROI of different opportunities, marketers also have a vast history of sponsorships and events they can look to for insights into the characteristics of highly effective opportunities. Copernicus decided to analyze a selection of nine sponsorships and events looking for commonalities and general attributes of strong performing opportunities. We drew cases from the banking, beer, coffee, energy supplier, engine oil, fast food, insurance, and pizza categories. Eight of the sponsorships were sports-related (baseball, football, motor sports, the Olympics, soccer, and tennis) and one was entertainment-related (a concert tour). According to pre-post tracking and sales data, six of the nine had no measurable effect. Three had a positive effect: one on sales, but not brand equity; one on equity, but not sales; one on both.

Our analysis of the nine cases revealed the effect of the sponsorship or event was greatest when:

1. There are engaged fans highly involved in the product category. Involvement is a characteristic of consumer, not of the product or service. Some people will spend almost as much time weighing the merits of different toothpaste brands as other people spend choosing a new car. If there's a high concentration of buyers who are involved in a category among a sport's, singer's, celebrity's, art form's, etc., fan base, then the sponsorship is more likely to have an impact. Motor oil and NASCAR, for example.

2. The event is supported by serious money (i.e., substantial investments in activation and promotional activities). According to SponsorClick, 33% of marketers spend less on activation—advertising and promotions that communicates the relationship between the brand and a particular sponsorship or event—than they do on rights fees, 13% use a 1:1, 14% use a 1:2 percent spend rate, 10% spend three to five times on activation than rights, 5% fork over five times rights fees, and 25% don't know what they spend. While our analysis did not reveal the magic ratio of fees to activation, if a company is not investing at least as equally in promoting the sponsorship to the target as it is in the rights to an opportunity, it will see little to no effect.

3. The company uses the sponsorship to communicate a clear message about the brand to a target excited by the sponsorship and responsive to the brand. Linking a brand to a property like the Olympics or Sundance Film Festival to build awareness for the brand name only is a poor investment of marketing dollars and a lost opportunity to speak to a group of buyers ready and willing to listen. Finding a compelling message is as critical to the success of sponsorship and event marketing as appropriate spending on activation. As an example, Fidelity Investments sponsored Paul McCartney's 2005 US Tour. The theme of the tour: Never stop doing what you loveSM. Fidelity's message: Let us plan the next stage of your life. For McCartney's predominantly baby-boomer audience who are at least thinking about if not in the process of retiring, communicating that Fidelity could help them continue doing what they love, just like Paul, likely resonated deeply with the audience.

4. There is a clean linkage between the product and sponsorship. IPod sponsoring the Grammy Award, Mott's sponsoring the Wiggles—a popular kid's musical group—US tour, Michelin sponsoring Formula 1, a "clean, green" energy company sponsoring the concert tour of a musician with a well-publicized penchant for the environment—the connection is pretty clear. But when the connection starts to become more subtle or stretched—a fast food company sponsoring the Olympics, a breakfast cereal sponsoring NASCAR, a national bank sponsoring the NCAA basketball "March Madness" tournament—the opportunity's effectiveness begins to decrease. If it takes longer than 5 seconds for you to explain the connection between a brand and an opportunity to your mother, it's a safe bet most target buyers aren't going to get it.

Granted, our sample was small, but certainly is illustrative of what marketers can discover by taking a closer look at common attributes of effective sponsorships and events.

For more insightful marketing discoveries, visit http://www.copernicusmarketing.com/discover/index.htm

Have a hot discovery for our next release? Contact us at info@copernicusmarketing.com

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Penned by two senior executives of Arnold Worldwide, one of America's top 20 advertising agencies, Breakaway Brands was inspired by the questions the two most often hear when they first visit with a new client: How do I get better work from you? How do I get a better campaign? How do I get the best results from my campaign? So Kelly and Silverstein decided to put pen to paper and outline all the steps they believe are necessary to get a great campaign. They bring in a plethora of real-world examples, ranging from Grey Goose to UPS, to illustrate their points and, importantly, pay special attention to the roles of the CEO, COO, and CMO in making it possible for their brands to "breakaway."

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5th Annual Six Sigma for Sales and Marketing
Presented by IQPC
The Venetian, Las Vegas, Nevada
March 28 & 29

Register and pay by February 10 and receive an early bird discount of $400!

2nd Annual Senior-Marketing Executives Roundtable, Linking Marketing to the Bottom Line
Presented by The Conference Board
InterContinental, The Barclay
New York, New York
April 5 & 6, 2006

2nd Annual Senior-Marketing Executives Roundtable, Linking Marketing to the Bottom Line
Presented by The Conference Board
The Westin River North, Chicago, Illinois
May 16 & 17, 2006

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