13 Lessons in Marketing, Super Bowl Style
Each year, the Super Bowl provides marketers opportunity to study and learn from the games' advertisers, players, and coordinators. Super Bowl XXXVI (February, 2002) was no exception. Foremost, of course, was The Game's appropriately patriotic theme. America's mettle and proud heritage were showcased to the world through this year's red, white, and blue logo; music selection by the performers; and depictions of historic U.S. icons. The Game further supported U.S. patriotism through the presence of the armed services, police department, and fire department at the game as well as interviews with troops in Afghanistan. Finally, as if by design, the unlikely Patriots won the championship. Super Bowl XXXVI provided other lessons as well -- lessons applicable to small budgets as well as large. Because the same marketing basics and strategic rules apply whether you are marketing online or off, the lessons can be applied to Internet as well as traditional marketing activities. On to the lessons -- one for each Old Glory stripe. Lessons from the AdvertisersLesson 1: Know your target audience. Both Pepsi and Levi demonstrated this lesson. - Pepsi's commercial re-creating several campaigns through the years showed how the company changed its advertising and image to reflect the teen target's interests. The commercial also played to the current teen market's interest in nostalgia. - You may have noticed that Levi ran the same commercial twice during the game -- the first time in English, the second time in Spanish. This reflects an awareness and appreciation of target audience demographics. Lesson 2: Research. Before airing the Super Bowl commercial, Levi completed a customer preference survey of visitors to the Web site. The winning spot was aired during The Game. Lesson 3: Consider launching your campaign around an event. E*Trade launched a new campaign by firing the monkey and officially announcing a new image. This new positioning carries through to the E*Trade Web site. You can also watch the commercial on E*Trades site. Lesson 4: Teasers can build interest. Anonymous mLife commercials in the days before the Super Bowl caused many to wonder, "Just what is mLife?" Late in the game, AT&T revealed mLife as the concept of a mobile, wireless life. Mlife, presumably, is prelude to a series of new AT&T products. Lesson 5: Research trademarks carefully. As a result of the mLife campaign, MetLife initiated a lawsuit against AT&T claiming mLife will dilute the MetLife brand. The lesson? Be aware of the potential for opposition from those with similar names, even if your products are unrelated. This pertains to domain names as well. Lesson 6: Sponsorships can help build brands. Schwab, E*trade, and Miller all helped brand equity by sponsoring portions of The Game this year. Consider this same tactic on a smaller scale. Numerous events, ezines, Web sites, and local causes offer sponsorship opportunities. Lesson 7: Events are new product opportunities. Reebok is offering limited edition commemorative sneakers. Super Bowl apparel is abundant. You can apply this same technique by brainstorming new products related to both online and offline events. Lesson 8: Be sensitive to changes in sentiment. This year E*Trade ditched the cute monkey in favor of a more trustworthy company image. Likely, this is due in part to a change in values and expectations from the company's customers. Lesson 9: Strategically place brand logos. Motorola produced headsets worn by The Game's coaches. You probably already knew - their logos flashed on the screen in every coach shot. Logos were predominant on the earpieces and facing outward on the microphones. Take a cue from Motorola and place your logos where they will be seen. Lessons from the GameThe league and teams themselves displayed lessons in marketing related to strategy, analysis, and implementation. Among them: Lesson 10: Involve your customers. The NFL draws interest in both its broadcasts and Web sites by conducting votes online. During the game, fans were asked to take various polls online and could vote for the Super Bowl MVP. Lesson 11: Promote across media. The team used multiple media outlets - game broadcasts, SuperBowl.com ( http://www.superbowl.com ), and NFL.com (http://www.nfl.com ) -- to promote the game. Additionally, they synergistically built audience for all three outlets by cross-promoting each through the other two. Lesson 12: Take advantage of competitor's weaknesses. Look for a chink in the competition's armor and use it to your best advantage. One of the few Ram's weaknesses is a propensity for turnovers. The overmatched Patriots knew exploiting this weakness was one of the few chances they had of winning The Game. When the opportunities came, they were ready. Lesson 13: Implementation is key. The underdog Patriots played a strong game. When it was time to execute, they pulled it off well. The same holds true for marketing programs. Preparation and planning are meaningless without effective implementation. About the AuthorBobette Kyle draws upon 12+ years of Marketing/Executive experience, Marketing MBA, and online marketing research in her writing. Bobette is proprietor of the Web Site Marketing Plan Network, http://www.WebSiteMarketingPlan.com, and author of the marketing plan and Web promotion book "How Much For Just the Spider? Strategic Website Marketing For Small Budget Business." ( HowMuchForSpider.com/TOC.htm ) Copyright 2002, 2004, Bobette Kyle. All rights reserved.
Related News
|
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Encouraging Contact
The small time promoter has to work hard and on a shoestring to get an audience of a few hundred people to fill a venue. Flyers, word-of-mouth and media name checks are some of the tools promoters use to fill small venues or club nights. Building a loyal following from grassroots is no easy task. Considering the amount of effort that can be required to fill even the smallest of venues it is surprising that very few promoters capitalise on their efforts and use the actual event to maximise the opportunity to encourage further audience contact.
5 Tips to Help You Identify WHO To Market To
If you have your own small business, it's important to decide exactly who you will be marketing your products or services to. After all, you probably don't have the time or the money to market to everyone. And even if you did, it is not recommended.
The Top 10 Ways to Market your Business or Professional Practice Without Advertising
Every business and professional practice MUST be in the public eye. You need customers! Folks need your goods and services -- it's a mutual alliance for mutual benefit! But if potential clients and customers don't know you exist, or can't find you, you will go bankrupt! They won't benefit from your services, and you won't make any money. So, marketing is a necessity. Advertising is one form of marketing, but it's terribly expensive. Here are the Top 10 alternatives:
How to Use Marketing Judo to Beat Big Competitors
If yours is a small business and you have big or even huge competitors, you may be laying awake at night wondering how can you possibly beat them. You can't out-advertise them, or out-promote them, and you probably won't be able beat to its prices. For example, think about a small business whose biggest competitor is Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Amazon.com or some other huge retailer. Is there any way to compete successfully against these Goliaths?
Marketing On The Cheap: Join The What?
Your local Chamber of Commerce.
Dont Use Yourself as Your Pricing Yardstick
"I wouldn't pay more than what I charge now."
Positioning For Success
According to military historian David Chandler the campaigns of Napoleon Bonaparte consistently rose above the expected. For more than 20 years Napoleon showed genius and skill as a general on the field of battle.
6 Article Marketing Smarts: How To Get More Reprints And Exposure
It probably depends on what you expect your article to achieve for you - better branding, more sales, or more publicity.
One-A-Day Marketing Vitamins
Is your business growing, or are you on a plateau in need of a boost to move up? I know that I always tell you it is best to have a positioning statement and a plan. But sometimes, you just need something to get you off square one.
7 Great Ways to Market Yourself and Your Business to Help Increase Sales
Do you own a business and need ideas on how to market your products or services to your customers? Well, the one thing that every business owner needs to know is that in order to survive, you need customers willing to spend their hard earned money for your products or services. The only way to drive customers to your business is to market yourself and your business in a way that customers believe in you and willing to spend money. There are defiantly many ideas about marketing, but I have listed 7 great ways to help you get started. These are all intended to help drive up sales and therefore help make your business successful.
What Does Marketing Mean?
You can have the best little business ever with wonderful potential, but if you can't market it, you don't have a business at all.
15-Minute Marketing: Lots of Results in Little Time
Do you think you don't have enough time to market? Here's a solution that can help you get started on marketing, or any other task you've been putting off.
How to Take Your Law Firm to the Next Level
How to Take Your Law Firm to the Next Level
Third in a series of three articles
Produce More Sales from your Email Promotions - Part 2
Do sales come from your ezine regularly? How many well-written articles do you submit per week to Online ezines? How often do you send thank you's and follow up messages to your different email groups?
Break Even On Your Next Direct Mail Campaign...And Still Generate Huge Profits
With direct mail, you can break even and still claim success. The reason for this can be understood only when determining the lifetime value of each customer brought in and the likelihood of those customers responding to subsequent offers. Here is a concrete example to illustrate my point.
Systems - Marketing Your Business Successfully
Business Systems that work for anyone, are a fundamental necessity for any networking venture. While most people rely upon their own company business system or plan for success, there is always a different option.
Selling To Your Affiliates
While success with any internet marketing program falls on the head of the marketer, what the program offers in pay outs and products plays a big roll. What I am going to focus on is the product side of the business. The products that you sell make the difference on who is going to buy them. Either you sell to people outside your own affiliate base. You sell to people within your base. Or you try and sell to both. I believe most marketers try and sell only outside their own affiliate base. If you do this then you are missing out on your greatest customer. Your own affiliates.
Marketing Quandaries
Being in a quandary prevents you from moving forward in developing and marketing your business. When we're in a quandary, we are in a state of perplexity and doubt. We don't know how to move forward to accomplish those things that are crucial to attracting clients and growing our business. One of the first things we need to recognize about being in a quandary is that we are, in fact, in one! There are a number of easy, simple things that you can start doing today to get yourself out of that place of being stuck.
When, Why, and How to Use Mailing Lists
Mailing lists may be the cause of more heartbreaks than anyother single factor in mail order. A poorly chosen list, a weakmailing and the high cost of mailing to a list can tax theoptimism of a new dealer very, very quickly. Arm yourself withknowledge before embarking on a course like this!
Identify The Ideal Target Audience With These 5 Tips
Narrowing your focus to one primary group of people is often difficult for small business owners. They want to help everyone - and very often their product or service CAN help a variety of people.
|
