Maximizing a Super Bowl Ad's Word of Mouth - Graeme Hutton-UM

Have you ever wondered how to maximize the word of mouth from your Super Bowl ad The Super Bowl remains the most watched annual TV event in the United States amp8211 an average of 44 of all homes watched last year It39s not so much a TV show as a major cultural phenomenon Its ability to boost a brand39s word of mouth has reached almost mythical proportions ever since Apple39s 1984 commercial heralded the launch of the Macintosh computerLet39s assume for one moment that we have a great ad a creative asset that resonates well with the consumer Is that enough Our initial regression modeling suggests that besides a great ad just maximizing the audience rating may not be enough Critically the quarter of the game that the ad appears in and securing the first position in the pod also count In addition 5 billboards those announcements often seen at the beginning or end of an ad pod may be an unnecessary luxury and from the perspective of WOM value possibly not worth the additional investment In 2010 UM won the Word of Mouth Marketing Association39s WOMMY Gold Award for Research for its paper quantifying how Sony Electronics39 media advertising helped boost its word of mouth Through a multivariate analysis we determined two key insights that had never been publicly demonstrated before1 Brand advertising has a direct effect on the effectiveness of word of mouth In this instance 14 of all Sony Electronics39 WOM was attributable to its own media activity2 A brand39s word of mouth is not just affected by its own ad activity Competitive share of voice is also a critical factor In the Sony Electronics model 23 of Sony39s potential WOM was eroded by the impact of competitors39 advertising activityIf we apply this type of modeling approach to ads in the Super Bowl what can it reveal To determine this we analyzed the reported word of mouth from Keller Fay39s Talk Track Super Bowl study conducted in 2011 Keller Fay takes a unique approach in the world of buzz trackers in that it captures both online and offline word of mouth Keller Fay was the data source fuelling the award winning WOMMY study For the Super Bowl Keller Fay specifically tracked 42 ads in the game with sample of 3000 individuals boosted during the week after the game with a custom surveyIt is wellknown that word of mouth levels vary substantially by market category Additionally since several advertisers had multiple placements and various commercial timelengths in the Super Bowl we decided to focus on one category where these variables would be minimized We chose to probe the movie sector since not only did this eliminate any crosscategory effects we were able to substantially reduce the variations from ad to ad For example there was only one ad for each film title and 30 seconds was the only commercial timelength utilized by all movie marketers This enabled us to isolate the core media drivers of movie mentions as a direct result of their Super Bowl advertisingTo analyze the effects of the Super Bowl we built a database of factors such as 1854 TV rating the game quarter in which the ad appeared ad position in pod use of billboards plus the word of mouth for each movie in the week after the Super Bowl that we applied to each ad Interrogating this database via regression analysis this is what the model revealedThe model39s projection is very encouraging with a 99 fit between predicted and actual word of mouth While one core factor was audience rating it was also bolstered by the quarter in which the ad appeared amp8211 the earlier the better We also saw that being first in pod provided great impetus to an ad39s WOM By contrast the often highly prized position of last in pod did not materially help WOM indeed it actually reduced the ad39s effectivenessThe jury remains out on billboards In our best model displayed in this column billboards did not help word of mouth reach ie the net number of people discussing the ad but in other models the gross volume or frequency of conversations were helped by billboardsFor UM the surprising reveal of this analysis is the low value of word of mouth derived from being placed last in pod amp8211 a media position which otherwise can often be highly regarded We hope to build and share on this analysis in future years 2012 should be another great year for Super Bowl advertising and its legend ability to motivate consumers to talk about brandsGraeme is SVP Director of Consumer Insights ampamp Research Graeme is responsible for ensuring that all appropriate proprietary and syndicated research tools and resources are applied in the development of consumer insight strategies for a total communications research platformfrom TV to chat roomswhich informs the efforts of Universal McCann and its agency partners Graeme can be reached at Graemehuttonumwwcomamp160Read all Graeme39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Curious Thoughts from Curious Mindsamp160Check us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggeramp160The opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentariesamp160amp160

Become a Thought Leader.
Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership

Maximizing a Super Bowl Ad's Word of Mouth - Graeme Hutton-UM

Author

Publish date

Channel

Graeme Hutton

Hispanic Leadership Roundtable: Inclusion, Mentorship, and Building the Next Generation (Video) - By Juan Ayala

More Videos:

Become a Thought Leader. Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership

Maximizing a Super Bowl Ad's Word of Mouth - Graeme Hutton-UM

Enjoying This Commentary? There's More to Love

Graeme Hutton

Hispanic Leadership Roundtable: Inclusion, Mentorship, and Building the Next Generation (Video) - By Juan Ayala

The payment was successful

Cookies

Become a Thought Leader.
Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership