As football season approaches, I have been talking with people about the classic Super Bowl ad and promotion development. Companies will be planning and creating their super bowl advertising campaigns this fall.
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FedEx made huge waves by announcing that they will not be advertising on TV this year. Miller's 1 second ad last year waas a brilliant move. Why pay for 30 seconds of major TV time when you can by 1 second and direct people online to get the rest of your message? It is a much better use of your resources. I have been thinking about other ways brands can redirect their Super bowl dollars to create compelling content online simply by taking the cost of the media spend and put it towards content development. So I am officially announcing the Brainloaf “Super Bowl Challenge”.
The Challenge
I challenge any large marketer (or small if you have the budget or creative financing) to challenge traditional Super Bowl thinking where they buy this big ads and instead take those millions of dollars for a thirty second spot and instead put that towards the production of a televison-like show. Develop a few episodes with good actors and writers.you have to have good actors, maybe one well-known actor.
Create the show as a brand-sponsored production that they can out on the internet on something like Hulu, Blip.tv or as a podcast. This year is the perfect opportunity for brands to put the tremendous amount of money that they are putting into traditional media buys today into quality online content production.
The Problem
Why should brands have to go to a network and rely on them to create the programming? Brands can cost effectively eliminate the network middle men and create shows that are highly targeted to their core audiences for a lot less money.
Why should brands pay to create commercials, hire celebrity spokespeople, and then pay more money to distribute that commercial where it is an annoyance, jammed down a consumers throat while they are trying to watch a show, not the commercials. Networks will soon have (if they don't already) the same issue record companies face not that the business and revenue generated by distribution is eroding as bandwidth grows and becomes unbiquitous.
The Opportunity
I challenge these brands who are spending probably hundreds of thousands of dollars - millions of dollars - to produce a TV spot and then millions of ad dollars to get it out to the public and put it on traditional broadcast media. Put it online in a way that promotes your brand, isn't necessarily advertising, but brand created entertainment or "how to" programs. Brands can distribute it over the internet-only or get distribution on smaller networks who need compelling content to attract viewers to their channels. However, downloading or viewing online is key to understand the effectiveness, viewership and impact of your brand driven content.
In a lot of ways, the networks still provide value to consumers because they act as a filter for garbage. People who choose to develop a show for TV have to make it through several hurdles to make sure the content is compelling, well produced and researched. Brands who develop the content will have to approach it in the same way a network considering to carry a show does. It's got to be of the right level of quality. You have to look at it like a TV producer or a TV executive would. I really think that a brand who takes the time to do that can begin to optimize their media expenses and focus on great content can capture serious market share of internet-based media consumption. On the internet, many traditional content providers are struggling because consumers have proven that they do not want to buy content online. Newspapers are a strong example of that.
If a brand became a record label or TV show producer, and instead of spending on advertising, they produced music and programming for their target audience or funded music production for artists. Would consumers accept brand sponsored music? If it generates great music, I think they would. I think great content development in that way be a very interesting model and one that the record industry needs because they are hurting for sales right now.
In Summary
The inaugural Superbowl Challenge for this year will see if anybody decides to break ranks and take a huge risk like this. Unfortunately, I think there is a very deeply ingrained thought process in any marketing organization where we saw in the 80's with computers and how clone PCs bearable overtake IBM. No one ever got fired for buying IBM equipment and no one ever got fired for buying a Superbowl ad. I could see the political risk if someone tested an internet webisode and it failed. It could be a major problem and someone who did it would really be sticking their neck out. So, maybe it will be a smaller mid-sized brand who's got some real social agenda behind it who may be the put together the money and the celebrity to put out the a show. In the end, I think that a high quality network TV level production show could work extremely well as downloadable, streamable, and podcastable content.
Do you know a brand who is challenging the concepts of traditional media? Let us know.