Here’s a quick thought for a Monday. SuperBowl XLIV (44 to you and me) was played last night to an estimated audience of 66%+ of the US population and tens of millions around the world. It was a classic. The first time since 1993 that the top-ranked teams from the 2 divisions met in the showcase event. Eventually, the fairytale story for the New Orleans Saints came true and they walked away with the Vince Lombardi trophy.
What has this to do with TradeDoubler and online marketing?
Some of the most expensive ad slots on TV are during the SuperBowl. It has been a staple for the big media spenders over the past 4 decades. This year had a few anomalies though…a role reversal for Pepsi and Google.
Pepsi – usually a sure bet to have a big segment, on the night, made a well publicised decision to pull out and spend those big advertising dollars in online advertising. Google on the other hand, made a rare investment in TV advertising. But it didn’t start out that way according to Eric Schmidt, who said on a recent blog post; “We didn’t set out to do a Super Bowl ad, or even a TV ad for search. Our goal was simply to create a series of short online videos about our products and our users, and how they interact. But we liked this video so much, and it’s had such a positive reaction on YouTube, that we decided to share it with a wider audience.”
While the ad itself is slick and engaging in a typically simple Google way, the amount of press the decision to run the ad has received has been a welcome uplift to the value for the Mountain View search company. Is this the start of a new trend? Run an ad on YouTube for a while and if it gets enough traction, it’s then released in the more expensive medium. At the IAB social media session last week, the panel discussed the need to invest in TV and other media in order to generate a YouTube viral sensation (Cadbury gorilla etc). Surely this is the other side of the coin. We shall see…