It’s been a tough year for advertising, but Super Bowl Sunday — the pantheon of advertising greatness — was our time to shine. Advertisers shell out $2.8 million for a chance to showcase their brand to more than 80 million viewers. How effective was the Super Bowl in reaching viewers this year? According to Nielsen ratings, Super Bowl XLIV broke all records for total US viewership, attracting an average audience of 106.5 million viewers.
Doritos revisited its “Crash the Super Bowl” ad campaign and choose four user-generated commercials to show during the game. According to the blogosphere, the budget for these spots ranged from — gulp — $80 to $1,000. The campaign has been a huge success for Doritos, having dethroned Anheuser-Busch’s 10-year streak of number one AdMeter rankings.
Of the four winners, 37-year-old Joelle De Jesus’ “House Rules” ad stands out. It featured a man showing up to take a single mom on a date. She tells him to have a seat, leaving the room to finish getting ready. On her way out, she introduces her date to her son Jalen, who catches his mother’s suitor checking her out as she leaves the room.
The date sits down, grabs a Dorito and starts playfully talking trash to Jalen. He barely gets a chance to finish his sentence when – smack! – Jalen strikes him across the face and responds with, “Put it back, and keep your hands off my momma and keep your hands off my Doritos!”
The spot, which was made for $80 (not a typo), has generated more than 1.7 million views on YouTube and was given five stars by nearly 5,000 users as of February 11. BrandBowl2010.com, which monitors real-time Twitter sentiment, ranked Doritos as the most effective Super Bowl brand.
While it’s hard to determine which brands will be long-term winners, we can see that massive ad buys and slick graphics can be successfully challenged by creative, user-generated content. Advertising creative employees and brands should consider this a wake up call. It’s time to stop broadcasting to your consumers and start engaging with them. The era of one-trick ponies, or Clydesdales in this case, is over.
