Super Bowl? A total Blackout for me!

Yea, what is Super Bowl???

I have been wondering that for a few days by now, because everyone in social media (read: in Facebook) is talking about this event! And seriously I didn't have a foggiest idea what it could be until I made a little bit googling... i had to google because I just didn't dare to ask somebody like "Hey, what is Super Bowl?" Someone could have thought that I was just stupid.....

.....And I found out that it is the final championship of NFL-league of American footboll, which is played annually in the middle of January and February.

Super Bowl is known worldwide and in every country people is watching it. And I didn't know anything about it, how embarrassing...




Why I am talking about this is because the event is a huge opportunity for a marketer. Like, in every country there are plenty of people who are watching, and they will for sure see your brand.  

 And for sure, in this year's championship there was an insuperable winner in advertising.

You know that there was a half-hour power failure when the game was going on. It was really embarrassing and the game was forced to get a break. While the "Super Bowl blackout" didn't make those associated with the operation of the event look particularly great, Oreo take its change and made something unexpected. Within 11 minutes of the stadium blackout, Oreo had a new ad tailored to the moment spread among its social media channels.

The Oreo brand’s marketing company reveals on its company blog that in addition to its own staff, representatives of five separate departments of Oreo plus key brand executives were together managing the company’s social media presence during the game. At least some portion of the planning put into having such people present was very likely centered upon how the company would respond if all did not go well with their advertising campaign, but having decision makers in the room during a major event proved to be a genius move on their part.
It is clear that they were focused on positive communication to support their brand, but the structure was prepared equally for offense or defense. By being prepared, Oreo was able to take advantage of a unique moment in a creative way.

You can see that the more timely a message is, the more relevant it is. And no one proved that more than Oreo. With a blackout in the game, Oreo created and tweeted the ad featured above. With half the world sharing in the experience, this just-in-time execution may have immediately connected with more people than any other ad in history. Not all of us drink Bud. Not all of us use Samsung. But ALL of us watching the game experienced the blackout at the same time. And Oreo connected our dots immediately.

Is it possible that a free tweet was more powerful than all the million dollar spots? Unbelievable but true. While the other brands were using millions to get people's attention, Oreo owned the night and they didn’t have to pay almost anything in media costs to do it.


Sources:
http://www.marketingmag.ca/news/marketer-news/column-who-won-the-advertising-super-bowl-71234
http://agbeat.com/business-marketing/oreos-rapid-response-to-super-bowl-blackout-proves-how-to-be-nimble/
http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl


See ya again,
Heidi :)