Stop Hating on Kim Kardashian: Her Ad Was One of the Super Bowl’s Best

The big game is over. The ads have run. And every American is now a critic for a day.

The winners are typically the most memorable or funny ads. That hasn’t changed since the dawn of Super Bowl marketing. While customers have evolved to social, mobile and digital beings, some of the Super Bowl advertisers have not.

Nowhere was the fundamental and structural disconnect between TV advertising and marketing in our digital and mobile world more evident than last night’s Super Bowl.

To make the most of their investments, marketers must do more than brand themselves by trying to capture Super Bowl viewers’ attention.

Yes, marketers must create a moment that resonates in order to capture immediate interest. That’s a given. But they also must convert that interest into a next step, a journey. Sometimes this is a sale. But more often it is permission to engage and continue a relationship with someone.

The laugh is not the reward. The journey is the reward. Your job as a marketer isn’t to just get a laugh, though getting one is a great start and not easy to do. Your goal is to build an audience and turn that audience into known customers and fans who are part of your community.

Only a few of the Super Bowl TV spots achieved these goals by using digital, mobile and social tie-ins to shape the creative direction. These spots spoke directly to the most interested customer and not to the general consumer. They didn’t draw a fictitious line between brand and direct marketing, understanding that the majority of their potential customers were watching the ad with a phone or tablet in their hand or within arms’ length, according to our research.

The most successful brands last night were comfortable ending their spots with a call to action – subscribe, text, visit a website or store, etc. Digital calls to action shouldn’t be an after thought for marketers, especially Super Bowl advertisers that paid $4.5 million to reach 100 million Americans.

With that said, here are three of my favorite ads.

T-Mobile "#KimsDataStash"

In the ad, Kim Kardashian laments as “tragic” the GBs of data taken back by wireless data.She then urges people to use the data they paid for to see all her selfies – pictures of her make-up, tennis abilities and outfits (and lack thereof).

The ad’s main insight was solid – mobile data is more important to young T-Mobile customers than the voice plan. And the company extended the program through a multi-faceted digital program that included a personalized Twitter application as well as YouTube, where the ad has already been viewed 12 million times.

The ad had a clear call to action that asked each viewer to go to a web site to see more Kim and engage with the campaign.

TurboTax “AbsoluteZero”

TurboTax leads with a very simple message: Americans can file their income tax returns for free through the company. The simple message is delivered through a silly but compelling re-enactment of the Boston Tea party with the Redcoats winning over the Colonists with the promise of no fees for tax submissions. Imagine how excited they were when Boston's team made the Super Bowl.

Most importantly, the ad has a simple call to action at the right time (2 months before taxes are due): “Start now at TurboTax.com”

SquareSpace "Om - DreamingWithJeff.com"

Squarespace offers a simple website publishing platform. It decided to put its product front and center by creating and showcasing a “sleep sound” album created featuring Academy Award-winning actor Jeff Bridges.

The Super Bowl ad features Bridges and drives people to DreamingWithJeff.com, where you can learn about AND BUY both the 11-track album and Squarespace’s service. While the ad won’t appeal to everyone in the country, it does speak to anyone with an organization or company that needs a better web site.

The site is beautiful and full of nice touches, including a free stream of the album and the option to purchase it 100% of the proceeds going to No Kid Hungry, one of Bridge’s charity efforts. All built with the company's product.

Well done, Squarespace!

This is Saleforce's full analysis of the social media conversation:

The top five most-mentioned brands for Super Bowl XLIX were Budweiser, Nationwide, Skittles, Doritos, and McDonald's. All but Nationwide had extremely positive sentiment throughout the Super Bowl. 77.3% of the Nationwide conversations, though, were negative.

Males just barely beat out females for share of social voice during Super Bowl XLIX (54.7% vs. 45.3%).

Katy Perry's halftime show received 3.4 million tweets, which was a 52% increase in mentions over last year's halftime show with Bruno Mars.

The New England Patriots not only won on the field, but they also won the Social Super Bowl as well with 1.9 million mentions and a 47,000 increase in Twitter followers due to the Super Bowl. The Seahawks only saw an increase of 38,000 and 1.7 million mentions throughout the game.

http://blogs.salesforce.com/company/2015/02/super-bowl-xlix-social-media-trends-and-analysis.html

Michael Lazerow is currently the Chief Strategy Officer of Salesforce.com. You can also find me on Instagram and Twitter.