For this year's Super Bowl party, I had the good fortune to be hanging out with a gang of good marketers, about equally divided between men and women. Never one to miss an opportunity, I handed out a Super Bowl ad scorecard, which allowed me to capture their ratings of "Love it," "Hate it," "It's OK," or "Don't Get It;" and take a look at whether there were any male/female differences.
Call it crowdsourcing - it sounds more trendy than family room research.
Funny Ads
Pretty unanimously, men and women at the party were in agreement on which ads were funny and which flopped. I'd say that's because this year most of the funny ads eschewed put-down humor (you can usually count on Bud Light for some gross offenders here!), which is appreciated by males and by young adults of both genders, but generally shunned by people over 30, especially women (who, I can't help remarking, are the consumers with the money!).
Instead, a greater number of ads were built on empathetic humor, which is more female-friendly. Everyone can relate to the frustrations of being in a terrible job (Careerbuilder.com and Monster.com), or the urge to silence an obnoxious cell-phone abuser (Chester Cheetah for Cheetos).
The blatantly male-targeted ads - Pepsi Max's "I'm Good" and Go-Daddy.com's Danica Patrick duo, got so-so responses from both the men and the women in the room. I'm personally curious that Pepsi Max is trying to solve what most people agreed is a non-problem for men: drinking diet soda. And while the manly mishaps drew loud guffaws, at the end of the spot, we still couldn't make the cola connection.
Regarding Go-Daddy - well, their strategy is obviously to be controversial and generate buzz before and after the game. But the buzz at my event was mostly about "Why on earth would Danica Patrick let herself be used like that?" (Oh, I don't know - money?). At least in the Congressional Hearing spot they mentioned domain names for the first time, so I guess that's progress, of a sort.
Both Careerbuilder.com ("Signs it may be time for you to look for a new job") and Monster.com (also, "Signs it may be time for you to look for a new job") got high fives for funniness.
It was odd that both career sites chose to spend their expensive Super Bowl time suggesting why you should look for a new job, which I imagine is the least of their communication needs these days. As marketers, we thought it strange that they were both satisfied with simple name recognition, when they could have tried to work in either "benefits to using an online resource" (most likely strategy for the market leader) or "advantages of using the advertised resource vs. a competitor" (most likely strategy for the number two brand).
Interestingly, in the Wall Street Journal's online poll, Careerbuilder's ad was tied for number one in the voting for Best ad (it garnered 11.9% of the votes, as did "Doritos Crystal Ball," followed by Monster.com at 9.7%).... and also led the ratings for Worst ad (17.3% of the votes, runner-up was "PepSuber," at 13.2%).
Heartwarming Ads
Two big winners here - The Budweiser Clydesdales, and Coke's "Fantasia with Insects." The Clydesdales have created so much warm and fuzzy emotional equity over the years that everyone looks out for the new spots, and these did not disappoint. Well, at least two of them didn't. Both "Fetch" and "Daisy" brought out the "Awwww, ....sweet" in everyone; "Great Grandpa," not so much.
Coke's "Fantasia" spot was universally agreed to be gorgeous and definitely delivered on their "Open Happiness" tag line. Importantly, we all remarked that it was clearly a Coke spot, and could never have worked for or been mistaken for Pepsi, which is saying a lot in the on-going war of the cola colossals.
Sadly, the eagerly waited Coke Zero re-make of Mean Joe Green with fan favorite Troy Polamalu was felt to miss the mark. Everyone wanted to love it, but the original set the bar too high, and the remake didn't make it over.
Overall Winner - Both Funny and Heartwarming: The e*trade baby, with his little singing sidekick "flexing the golden pipes" - Adorable! And yes, we all got the message that e*trade offers tools to help us deal with the economy "running a little rough these days." (World-class understatement!)
Ads We Hated
Teleflora's "Talking Flowers" left us all aghast, women and men alike. Looks like maybe some clever young creative was looking for "edgy" humor to put on his reel... and shot over the edge of good taste. What a costly way to shred your brand appeal right before Valentine's Day floral order season.
Cash4Gold's inappropriate exploitation of the well-known woes of Ed McMahon and MC Hammer was universally denounced as crass and completely unfunny.
Biggest Surprise: No ads from P&G or Unilever this Year
According to a survey conducted last week for Hanon McKendry. women are three times more likely than men to say the commercials are what attract them to the Super Bowl (31 percent vs. 11 percent). So given that women buy 80% of almost everything; that the Super Bowl generates the largest audience of women in the world; and that a lot of them are sitting there waiting for a good ad.... what happened to the brands that are trying to reach women? It's enough to make a marketer ask "Who dropped the ball?"
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