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We don’t frequently report new product case studies on the Brainzooming blog. One reason is we don’t cover our own client innovation work because it’s almost always confidential.

Another reason?

Commenting on stories about new product development innovations as reported in magazines is too speculative. Having been involved with public relations spin for Fortune 500 level companies, by the time you read a major story in the press, it may have little resemblance to what actually happened to innovate the new product.

Instead, the case study-oriented stories we cover tend to focus more on a strategic thinking question we use frequently: What brainstorming questions or creative thinking exercise would have generated this innovation?

Even if the brainstorming questions or creative thinking path we hypothesize isn’t what the brand used to hatch its innovation, it helps us continually develop new strategic thinking exercises or refresh familiar brainstorming questions we use with clients of The Brainzooming Group to generate ideas.

Tostabags – Making “Cooking” a Grilled Cheese Sandwich Easier

One recent product that was new to me, however, screamed for a blog post on brainstorming questions.

Tostabags (affiliate link) literally jumped off the shelf during a Saturday morning grocery store shopping trip. With Lent approaching and me doing more of my own food preparation (notice I didn’t say “cooking”) recently, the promise of an easy grilled cheese sandwich was top of mind!

As Facebook friends pointed out, it’s not like making a grilled cheese is that hard. But when your main food prep motivations are using as few dishes or utensils as possible and trying to maximize the microwave oven’s role, traditional grilled cheese preparation is a 3-item chore (stove, frying pan, and spatula).Talk about complicated!

The clear benefit of Tostabags, developed by Guy Unwin of the UK’s Planit Products, was not lost on me. This was especially true since the price tag covered the brand name, making the benefit more clear than the brand name! The ability to take two pieces of bread, put a piece of cheese between them, slip it into Tostabags, and slide the whole deal into a toaster? That’s much easier, and what’s even better, having tried one out, Tostabags work. The grilled cheese sandwich was great!

Brainstorming Questions that Could Lead to Tostabags

Not knowing how Guy Unwin came up with the Tostabags idea, you can imagine the idea flowing very naturally from an exercise learned from Chuck Dymer called Trait Transformation (it also goes by the name SCAMPER).

The basis of Trait Transformation is initially identifying:

• An innovation objective, i.e., innovating new products to make cooking easier
• Characteristics related to the innovation objective

In the case of coming up with the idea for Tostabags, the characteristics might have been kitchen items associated with cooking (i.e., stove, microwave, utensils, toaster, etc.) or common prepared foods (i.e., sandwiches, scrambled eggs, pizza).

With the characteristics (or “traits”) identified, they are modified through “transformers” to deliberately change how they factor into the innovation objective. Typical transformers include:

• Simpler
• More Complicated
• Bigger
• Smaller
• Easier
• More Customized
• More Complex

Using a Trait Transformation approach, you can clearly see the combo question: How could we make preparing a grilled cheese sandwich easier?

Answer: Pop it into a bag in the toaster!

Try Them Both – Trait Transformation and Tostabags

If it’s not apparent already, I’m a longtime fan of Trait Transformation and a recent fan of Tostabags. Try Trait Transformation out when you need new innovation ideas that vary what’s already out there. And while you’re busy innovating, keep yourself energized eating an EASY grilled cheese sandwich with Tostabags!  - Mike Brown

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The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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B2B marketing expert Randall Rozin (who you can find on Twitter under his @RandallRozin account) is back with a history lesson on branding in the Wild West and how that models translate to the important area of employee branding  in today’s companies.

Employee Branding Lessons – Riding for the Brand by Randall Rozin

In the late 1800s, brands were like a heraldic crest, a cattleman’s coat of arms, if you will. Brands identified not only an owner or a ranch; they also provided a set of traditions and a unique sense of identity for the cowboys who represented the brand’s ranch. It was not uncommon for a cowboy of the times to ride for the brand more than for the individual ranch owner.

As the preface to his short story of the same name, Louis L’Amour described the term ‘riding for the brand’ as an expression of loyalty to an employer.  It was considered a compliment of the highest order. Today, a great deal of effort is invested by companies creating internal branding efforts designed to inspire employee identity, loyalty, and a sense of ‘riding for the brand’.

Background on the Cowboy Branding Process

On the great plains of the American West, Ketch Hands roped each calf and pulled it near the branding fire. Flankers then grabbed the calf by the ear and loose skin of the flank, lifted it up and laid it on its side. Others called out the brand of the calf’s mother and the appropriate branding iron was brought to the fire.  While one man held the calf, an Iron Man branded the calf at the hips, ribs, or shoulder according to the practice of the owner.

From Cowboys to Corporations

Modern corporate brand managers employ an analogous branding process. Today’s “Ketch Hands” are typical pre-purchase activities such as advertising, sales promotions, point of-purchase displays, permission-based marketing, social media, and trade show sellers. Each element is designed to bring potential buyers “closer to the branding fire.”

Ropers of today often take the form of marketing automation and other CRM processes. As prospects come into the company via electronic means they are tagged via a cookie or other ad-serving technique to identify their origin. Some companies have consistently done their branding job so well that their customers come willingly to the “branding fire.” Examples where customers actually brand themselves include: Harley Davidson Motorcycles (whose customers often tattoo the company’s logo on their bodies) or many apparel brand fans such as those of Nike –whose millions of customers around the world brand themselves with the Nike Swoosh.

Employee Branding – Supporting Your Brand “Iron Men and Women”

Where the ultimate aim is for customers to perceive a brand as unique, relevant, credible, and differentiated enough to seek it out, most brand managers must adopt the cowboy’s “iron man” process and apply the brand one interaction at a time. However, rather than having one “iron man,” modern brand managers must look for ways to make each brand representative an “iron man” in their own right. Today’s brand “iron men and women” must look for ways to imprint their brand on their customers through employee branding behaviors, attitudes, and consistent delivery of brand promises made at all points of contact.

Likewise for employee branding efforts, today’s management teams and leadership must continuously find credible ways to apply their own branding iron to their employees.  They do this by creating consistent linkage between company values, goals, and behaviors.  They link reward and recognition systems to the delivery of company brand behaviors and create compelling workplaces that consistently live the brand they advocate.  It’s no simple task to authentically and consistently connect brand aspirations to brand behaviors, but walking the walk in visible ways is a best place to start.

While it is entertaining to draw similarities between the branding process of cowboys and the modern branding of corporations it is, admittedly, an over simplification. Today’s brand managers do not have the luxury of taking one key opportunity to permanently brand their customers for life. In addition, unlike the rancher, the brand is not truly owned by the company, but by the customer.

Create More Riders for the Brand

An important goal of the modern brand manager is to uncover each “moment of truth” in the relationship between his/her brand and the customer.  It is equally important to define for employees the role they play in delivering against a given “moment of truth.” It is within each moment of truth that brands are truly built or damaged. The key for effective overall brand management is to ensure that each “iron man” understands his or her role in the branding process.

Like the cowboys of the Wild West, today’s brand manager looks for ways to differentiate his/her product or service from similar offerings. The modern brand is a sign of ownership, of heritage, of quality level, and of employee identification and affiliation. The ultimate goal of both the cowboys of the past, and brand managers of today, is to create more ‘riders for the brand’ to help differentiate the brand and to create more loyal advocates for it. – Randall Rozin

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming blog email updates.

Download the free ebook, “Taking the NO Out of InNOvation” to help you generate fantastic creative thinking and ideas! For an organizational innovation success boost, contact The Brainzooming Group to help your team be more successful by rapidly expanding strategic options and creating innovative plans to efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can deliver these benefits for you.

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The Brainzooming blog has a wonderful group of guest authors who regularly contribute their perspectives on strategy, creativity, and innovation. You can view guest author posts by clicking on the link below.

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Today’s question seems like a straight forward one: Who is your customer?

First a Little Background

I was excited Tuesday to be having lunch with Social Media Club of Kansas City president, Aaron Deacon, and Barrett Sydnor because Aaron always picks great places to eat. He selected a restaurant with a Mardi Gras feel (appropriate for the day), and I was eagerly looking forward to beignets. I even had my wife look at the restaurant’s menu online early in the morning to see which type of beignet she wanted me to bring home.

Arriving and parking in the restaurant’s lot across the street, I was greeted by Aaron and Barrett walking to a different nearby restaurant. It turns out the restaurant we intended to go to was closed, so Aaron had another suggestion. Since the original restaurant was closed and the parking lot was adjacent to the new destination, I followed along for the short walk without a second thought.

As Barrett and I left the second restaurant later, we discovered my car had been towed at the original restaurant’s behest (although it was clear they hadn’t cleared the lot of all the cars there).

After a few calls, we found ourselves in a dingy office in Kansas City’s River Market, waiting in line behind a very angry woman who was mouthing off to the tow people about exactly the same experience. She had intended to go to our destination restaurant, found it closed, wound up at the same restaurant as us, and had her car towed. Based on her angry interaction with the tow people, it was clear anger wasn’t getting her anywhere. In fact, they were screwing her around to make it longer to get her car, delaying the process in every way imaginable.

When it was my turn, I quietly said I was in the same situation. The previously mouthy tow guy politely got me handled right away (especially after I was reaching over the half-door to pet the office dogs) and had me “fast tracked.” That meant driving me to the tow lot while the other woman had to sit and wait for someone to go there and get her car and return it to the office. While it cost us both $205 to get our cars back, our customer experiences, by that point, were VERY different.

Who Is Your Customer?

So back to the question: “Who is your customer?”

Clearly this question is open to debate. Looking at a post on the restaurant’s Facebook page, it offered an explanation of sorts about its towing policy laced with a hint of “stick it to you” contriteness.

In the post, the restaurant makes it clear that ITS definition of a customer is limited to the person who is currently sitting in the restaurant eating . . . sort of. I say “sort of” because one comment on the post mentioned a current patron that was about to have his car towed when he had to rush across the street to stop it.

Fair enough, that’s certainly an obvious definition of what a customer is, and it makes the restaurant’s tow policy (apparently) easily enforceable.

From my perspective, however, I had become a “customer” of the restaurant earlier that morning and for several hours before showing up at the location. Anticipating it for hours and already pre-planning what to bring home to my wife had me squarely in the customer camp. I was hoping we’d be able to return together in the future even though we have to be very selective about restaurants because of food reactions she has.

Even after I parked and had to settle for another restaurant, I’d have told you I was there to be a customer of the original restaurant.

It’s Not All that Clear, Apparently

Certainly there was a disconnect between the restaurant and me in defining “who is your customer.”  Clearly, the restaurant doesn’t even view money changing hands as part of a customer definition since it got some cut of my several hundred dollars (which is an interesting business model for a restaurant that doesn’t want to open during the day . . . simply have people towed and increase your average lunch check vs. actually being open).

While the restaurant has a very pragmatic definition of “who is your customer,” it suggests no understanding at all of that whole customer lifetime value thing. Maybe that’s fine, because having spent $205 to “not eat” at the restaurant, their cut of the fee used up my full customer lifetime value for their restaurant.

At least now the restaurant and I are on the same page and both agree – I’m not a customer and never will be.

Think About Your Business – Who Is Your Customer?

What types of definitions do you put around who your customer is in your business? Do you have to see someone before they become a customer? Do you have to actually be serving them? Or might someone be your customer well before you have any idea they are considering YOU first? That’s a big part of the Google Zero Moment of Truth work that potential customers are seeking out information about your business before they make a move in your direction.

But, What’s the Restaurant’s Name?

You may wonder why I didn’t name the restaurant and flame them. It crossed my mind. On the way to the tow place I found the @Brainzooming Twitter account has about 60 times the restaurant’s Twitter followers. I followed them, and they blocked me on Twitter even though I didn’t tweet one thing about them.

Ultimately though, trying to flame them on social media gets the restaurant more attention with a global audience of Brainzooming readers. Why would I want to do that?

Far better for the angry woman in front of me – who works for a local TV station – to try and work up the story for her TV station. The story of towing scams in Kansas City should be ripe for revisiting. If you live in Kansas City and want to know the restaurant, however, message me, and I’ll let you know where it was. And emphasize why you should join my boycott! - Mike Brown

Subscribe for Free to the Brainzooming blog email updates.

Download the free ebook, “Taking the NO Out of InNOvation” to help you generate fantastic new ideas! For an organizational creativity boost, contact The Brainzooming Group to help your team be more successful by rapidly expanding strategic options and creating innovative plans to efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can deliver these innovation benefits for you.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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As I’ve mentioned, an increasing number of Brainzooming workshops I do use a presentation strategy where audience members select specific topics we cover live. This allows audience members to customize the presentation to topics they find most relevant. Based on reactions to this presentation strategy, people appreciate this relatively rare opportunity to design a speaker’s presentation to maximize the value for their own needs.

One downside to the presentation strategy is preparing so much content that doesn’t get shared.

For example, during the recent PR Consultants Group workshop on new product launch challenges, the group didn’t select an intriguing strategic thinking exercise to identify or enhance the product benefit statements supporting a new product or service. The strategic thinking exercise (called “That’s What You Say”) is a variation of the “What’s It Like” exercise and another we use to identify less-obvious potential competitive threats for brands.

How the “That’s What You Say” Strategic Thinking Exercise Works

For the new product or service you’re addressing, identify as many potential product benefits as possible. If a product is being re-launched, include both product benefits you’ve highlighted previously plus others that have been ignored, for whatever reason.

After you’ve exhausted the full list of potential benefits, generalize each of the product benefits, as necessary, to more broadly describe them. Then, for each benefit, identify various non-competitive products, brands, and companies making comparable brand benefit appeals – whether they are being made to your target audience or not.

After developing this expanded list of brands, look at how they tackle communicating comparable brand benefits in ways that are new or more distinct than those currently used in your market.

An Example of “That’s What You Say” in the Toothpaste Market

Suppose you’re launching a new product in the toothpaste market. Competitive brands talk about delivering a variety of product benefits, including:

• Whiter teeth
• Brighter teeth
• Fewer Cavities
• Pain Relief

Most of these brand benefits are toothpaste-focused, so they need some generalization to effectively use them in this strategic thinking exercise.

The list below shows these typical toothpaste product benefits generalized (bolded words) to be more broadly applicable. Additionally, for each benefit in the list, there are one or more other brand categories making comparable product benefit claims.

• Whiter – Laundry Detergent
• Brighter – Light Bulbs, Laundry Detergent
• Lower Treatment / Repair Costs – Preventive Medicine, Auto Preventive Maintenance
• Pain Relief – Aspirin, Ibuprofen, Ointments

Armed with this list of seven other product categories, marketers can look for new strategic inspiration outside their brand category and consider how they could adapt how other brands are addressing comparably positioned product benefits. - Mike Brown

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The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Brands can struggle getting beyond communicating the features they provide – which are often identical to their competitors’ features. This limitation means they never create compelling demonstrations of the benefits and brand value they can deliver.

In contrast, while developing my presentation on “New Product Launch Failures” for the PR Consultants Group conference recently, I rediscovered this FedEx advertisement from the late 1990s in a previous presentation. While we used the FedEx advertisement internally to communicate the importance of performance for our transportation company, the ad is also a fantastic example of a B2B brand making its brand value very clear AND very personal.

Turning Your Brand Value into Real Terms

Rather than name a competitor and point out features where FedEx is better or discuss defects in the competitor’s features, the FedEx advertisement took a different approach. The FedEx advertisement paints a stark, memorable contrast between the implications of choosing a less reliable and (an implied) less costly option than FedEx. The advertisement conveys a deep, damning view of the personal implications (in a B2B brand situation) when a shipping company fails to deliver the necessary and expected brand benefits a business seeks when shipping its goods. The prospect of saving a few dollars by not selecting FedEx and thus risking any or all of the thirty bad things that could happen (as listed in the advertisement) doesn’t seem like an attractive trade-off at all.

Price Isn’t the Only Item in the Brand Value Equation

We faced this talking to a potential client who countered our proposal by saying the organization had a local university professor prepare its previous strategic plan. The university professor didn’t charge anything, so the organization’s leadership believes it shouldn’t cost very much to develop a strategic plan.

Of course, this was quickly followed by admitting the plan didn’t work in moving the organization forward. I pointed out price isn’t the only factor in the value equation, and, as this organization experienced, even “free” can be a bad value since they wound up “paying” in lost opportunity and strategic disarray.

What Benefits and Brand Value Would Be Lost if Your Brand Weren’t Around?

If your brand is struggling with justifying a higher price than a competitor, use this FedEx advertisement as inspiration for a strategic thinking exercise.

Can you identify thirty bad things that could personally happen to the decision maker (and organization) that chooses your cheaper competitor? If so, you are well on your way to more effectively being able to communicate your brand value story. - Mike Brown

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming email updates.

The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Brainzooming regular contributor and retail marketing sage, Woody Bendle bring a fantastic quantitative perspective to his analysis of Super Bowl Advertising. Woody used a rating scale exploring relationship and creative strengths to assess this year’s crop of Super Bowl advertising entries. Check out Woody’s methodology and see how your favorites fared with his analysis:

Mike reached out the weekend before the Super Bowl and asked if I’d be interested in writing a blog post about this year’s Super Bowl advertising.  I had no idea what I would write but I’ve always found the pressure of a deadline invigorating so without even giving it much thought, I immediately said yes!

OK… so now what?

Super Bowl Advertising by the Numbers

It is estimated that there were approximately 120 million viewers for the Super Bowl this year.  Come Monday morning, these viewers talk not only about the game, but also the Super Bowl advertising.  This conversation happens from the water cooler to the boardroom.  Everyone watching instantly becomes an armchair Creative Director with a lot of advertising opinions, some favorable, and some…. well, not so much.  What do they know anyway!?  Oh yeah, they’re actually potential customers!  That’s right, the folks who Super Bowl advertising was, in theory, created for in the first place!

This year, the average 30 second spot in the Super Bowl cost about $4 million to air.  This is up a staggering 14% from last year!  Talk about inflation!!!  Four Million Dollars for 30 seconds.  Man, that ad better work!  OK… maybe there’s a little pressure associated with creating an impactful advertisement for the Super Bowl.

So let’s pretend for a moment, that you had a spare $4 million lying around.  And for some CRAZY reason, you decided to run a commercial during the Super Bowl.  I already noted that you’re going to have 120 million people judging you, and they’re going to be comparing you with some advertising heavyweights such Budweiser, Doritos, Volkswagen, E*Trade and probably every car manufacturer on the planet.

Still feeling up to the challenge?

Oh, and remember that some of those 120 million watching the Super Bowl are potential and current customers (see above)!  And, last but not least, some of those 120 million people are your bosses, shareholders, and board members – and they’re going to want to know if your Super Bowl advertising “worked.”

Are you prepared to answer that question?

Measuring Potential Advertising Effectiveness

In my opinion, the goal of TV advertising should be to create (or build upon) a profitable relationship between your brand and your consumers, and to clearly register a memorable (preferably favorable) impression that can build upon your brands equity over time.

In television advertising, there is usually a very STRONG relationship between creative execution (that is aligned with the brand’s personality and promise) and the ad’s ability to create (or further build upon) a relationship with your brand.  And, being the geek that I am, I decided to perform a highly unscientific quantitative evaluation of the Super Bowl advertising this year with an extremely unrepresentative sample (13 people made up of my family and some friends – with a slight sample bias towards high school students).  Well, maybe we’re not all that unrepresentative.  We do live smack-dab in the geographic middle of the United States, and I suppose that make us the “average” in some way, shape, or form.

OK, so the objective of my little Super Bowl advertising research project was simply to demonstrate the relationship between creative execution and relationship potential.  To do this, we rated each ad that ran from the kickoff through the end of the Super Bowl.  And, each ad was rated on five simple measures (that’s over 3,000 scores I had to crunch).

Relationship Potential was measured through:

1)     Consideration – “The ad made me interested in buying from this company (or buying this product)”

2)     Connection – “The ad made me like this company or product”

Creative Impact Potential was measured through:

3)     Message Clarity – “I clearly knew who the ad was for and what this ad was trying to tell me”

4)     Likability – “How much I liked this ad (or not)”

5)     Buzz Worthy – “Is this ad worth sharing online with my (Facebook) friends”

Let’s see how your ad did!

By plotting Super Bowl advertising based on its Relationship Potential score vs. its Creative Impact score, we end up with a 2 x 2 grid that helps us quickly see who the Super Bowl ad winners and losers were (at least according to my family and friends) this year.  And, as we hypothesized earlier, there is a VERY STRONG relationship between an Ad’s Creative Impact and its Relationship Potential!

The top marks for this year’s ads goes to Best Buy, Doritos (goat ad), Budweiser and Taco Bell.  These ads scored well for both their ability to build a relationship with the audience, and their strong creative execution.

The bottom marks go to Cars.com, MiO Fit, Bud Light (Voo-Doo Dolls), GoDaddy.com (Walter), Gildan T-Shirts and Mercedes Benz (although I gotta give them props for the Stones tune!).  These ads were rated poorly for both Creative Impact and their Relationship Building Potential.

And by the way, the Calvin Klein ad in the Super Bowl did very well with the High School girls (I’m expecting that to be “shared” and “liked” a lot of Facebook over the coming days by teenage girls).

So how did my family and friends do?  Do our ratings reflect your opinions? - Woody Bendle

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming blog email updates.

Download the free ebook, “Taking the NO Out of InNOvation” to help you generate fantastic creative thinking and ideas! For an organizational innovation success boost, contact The Brainzooming Group to help your team be more successful by rapidly expanding strategic options and creating innovative plans to efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can deliver these benefits for you.

Guest Author

The Brainzooming blog has a wonderful group of guest authors who regularly contribute their perspectives on strategy, creativity, and innovation. You can view guest author posts by clicking on the link below.

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Here is my Super Bowl advertising recap from watching the game and the Twitter activity on the live #SBExp Twitter chat. This year, I hosted my own solo Super Bowl party, which is pathetic, but at least I got as many chicken wings as I wanted.

Amazingly, after a start where it looked like the 49ers couldn’t cover a Ravens player within five yards, the game got competitive after the lights went out (more about that later). The game ultimately came down to the last play of the game, making the football better than the advertising, in my opinion.

Nonetheless, let’s get to the ads:

The Super Bowl Advertising Winners

The first half Amy Poehler appearance for Best Buy was a satisfying change of pace – the brand was clear, Amy Poehler was funny as always, and she said the word “dongle” . . . The second half Tide ad for the Montana Miracle was product, benefit, and game-specific, plus it incorporated surprise and emotion. That’s a hard working ad from a familiar brand . . . Before everything got started on the Super Bowl braodcast, there was a pre-game ad for Buffalo Wheat Thins that played on everyone’s fears of Yetis and neighbors breaking in to steal snack foods that was amusing, and kind of made me remember the brand.

Several brands pursued sponsor bombs and got into the Super Bowl advertising mix without paying the premium rates on CBS by using promoted Twitter messages carrying strong strategic tie-ins. The Society of Human Resources Management took advantage of an NFL Network draft ad for its promoted Twitter ad, while Outback Steakhouse twisted its Bloomin’ Onion promotion to encourage patrons say “Super Bloom” for a freebie order the Monday after the Super Bowl. When you’re on a limited budget, sponsor bombs are a smart strategy to pursue.

Amy Poehler for Best Buy

Tide - The Montana Miracle

Really?

Doritos apparently used up all the good amateur advertising people in the world in previous years with its earlier crowdsourced Super Bowl advertising entries . . . I’m not sure any of the first half Budweiser ads (Bud Light or Bud Black Crown) worked. Calvin Klein on the other hand? It’s underwear ad featuring a guy with incredible abs (which was a complete rip-off  of the H&M – Beckham ad from 2012)? Budweiser only wishes it could sell six packs that well . . . Audi’s ad with a young man taking Dad’s car solo to the prom and all of a sudden becoming an apparent rebel seemed off brand until the tag line explained it was all about “Brave engineering.” Brave engineering? Can you say, “Reach!”

The chasing Coke ad gave me no reason to care about voting or who would win the chase, even if it meant deciding which pre-shot ending would be chosen. The other Coke ad with the security cameras shooting pictures of people was supposed to be representative of shared moments. Feeling like you’re being spied on with your every move is a connection we all share, I guess . . . Both Jeep announcing Oprah and Dodge RAM announcing Paul Harvey as voice overs is like an editorial cartoon labeling all the characters – you just shouldn’t have to do that. Both of these ads are getting attention as among the best. They stood out because of lower production values (photo montages in the Dodge ad) and heart-tugging messages, but the format is getting tiresome – especially when Chrysler does it in exactly the same place two years in a row.

The first Hyundai Santa Fe ad included pancakes, The Flaming Lips, bikers, and bubble boys, with nary a mention of Hyundai. A later Hyundai ad for their turbo-charge capability actually worked, i.e. it mentioned a feature (turbo charged engine) and visualized a related benefit (staying in front of bad vehicles to follow).

Calvin Klein

 Hyundai Turbo Charged Engine

And the Movie Ads

Movie ads just don’t work for me in the Super Bowl. Since nearly every ad looks like a movie with some attempt at a surprising twist at the end (such as finally mentioning the advertiser), the movie ads look like everything else except with no surprises.

The Skin

In a local pre-game break, Hardees tried to out-skin GoDaddy, but then GoDaddy changed things up with an international angle – couples worldwide and French kissing. How about if we all agree to buy a GoDaddy url if they stop Super Bowl advertising? I missed the 2 Broke Girls ad that supposedly put GoDaddy to shame, I can’t imagine what it featured.

Instagram and Oreos

In what you’d have to think was its first featured Super Bowl appearance, Instagram was at the heart of the call to action for Oreos and its Crème vs. Cookie debate. By half time, the Oreos Instagram presence had grown to more than 25,000. While the TV-social media integration was being applauded, others questioned the cost per follower Oreos had invested. The BIG question: Will Oreos continue to activate its Instagram presence throughout the year?

Lights Out!

Beyonce was in a pre-game commercial explaining that her skin is a unique story. Apparently there’s a recorded story about her lips, which she avoided by not even pretending to sing on Single Ladies. But right after Beyonce was done . . . there was a blackout? Did she cause it? As @rsarver shared on Twitter, “BREAKING: During the Twitter, Superbowl goes down” . . . Given the change in momentum in favor of the 49ers afterward, we now know which Harbaugh brother is the better Catholic whose prayers get answered. My main concern though was people would start blaming FEMA and the other Mike Brown all over again . . . They said during the blackout the coaches were busy organizing the players to help them deal with the delay. Really? I never had one boss who had to come help me cope with a meeting that didn’t start on time.

But speaking of coping, both Oreo and Tide were able to respond with real-time content about the 30-plus minute blackout in the second half.  Allstate and its Mayhem character also got in on the blackout on Facebook, with Mayhem saying he’d planned to simply shut off the scoreboard. It goes to show that social media IS the most flexible, broadcast-oriented marketing communications tool a brand has – if it’s ready with the listening and smart content creation talent real-time activity requires.

What’s Up for Future Super Bowls?

What Eminem was to 2011, Rock was to 2013 – who will be the multi-ad person be for Super Bowl XLVIII? Future sponsorship opportunity? An international airline should sponsor all the kicks out of the end zone and 108 yard kickoff run backs . . . Somebody needs to develop the app to let you know which break has the weakest Super Bowl advertising so you know to go pee then . . . Maybe it’s just me, but simply throwing random characters, celebrities, and objects at your brand in for your Super Bowl advertising push (i.e., Coke, Bud Light, Mercedes, Taco Bell and others) isn’t all that effective. I’d recommend less of that in future Super Bowls. - Mike Brown

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If you’re struggling to create or sustain innovation and growth, The Brainzooming Group can be the strategic catalyst you need. We will apply our  strategic thinking, brainstorming, and implementation tools to help you create greater innovation success. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call  816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you figure out how to work around innovation and implementation challenges.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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