Last night the glitterati of Hollywood graced
the red carpet for the prestigious Academy Awards. Dressed to impress and doing their best to
enhance their public brands, the stars in attendance were hoping to scoop the acclaim
and accolades of the industry. However, the cream of Hollywood’s exclusive crop
weren’t the only ones looking to grab the media spotlight last night.
It should surprise little that last night The
Brand Avenger cared less for A-list Movie Directors, actresses tripping up over
their fine silk dresses, or the planned alcoholic consumption of George
Clooney. As we live in a world where
needless brand expenditure is rampant and businesses plunge into bankruptcy
daily my attention is always fixed firmly on how business use events such as this
to position their brands. After all, the sheer size of audience the Oscar’s
attract also brings with it a huge slice of premium priced ad space for the big
brands to fight over.
As it turned out 2013 would be the year the
metaphorical ‘asking price’ bar was raised. Reports from my trustworthy
sidekicks on the interweb suggest Disney charged anywhere between $1.6- $1.8
million for advertising space during last nights ABC coverage of the event; the
highest asking price for 5 years.
Despite the massive price tag it was also reported that demand was the
highest it had been in years! Seems like the premium pricing did little to
dampen the spirits of enthusiastic brand managers. Indeed some of the brightest
brand stars in the land strutted their stuff last night including but not
limited to Coca’Cola, Samsung, McDonalds and Neutrogena.
As a protector of brand identity I can’t
help but looking deep within myself and asking the essential question everyone
should be asking- Was it all worth it?... Was it all worth it? Well, first of
all it certainly wasn’t the most extravagant ad purchase one could have made
this year. Of course the honor of that goes to a little thing called the
Superbowl and the television time devoted to ads before, during and after said
event. If you choose to pitch your brand tent in NFL space you are looking to part
ways with $3.7 million before even knowing if the investment was worth it!
Seems like a lot of money? That’s because it is nub nuts! Especially if your
campaign isn’t integrated across media platforms meaning you have little chance
of measuring ROI.
Why are integrated campaigns better for the
health of a brand? The explosion of social media use over the last 7 years has
led to what industry experts describe as the ‘second screen’ phenomenon, As
consumers watch TV they are less likely to be paying their full attention to
one screen and more likely to be at least partly engaged in what’s happening on
their smaller screens as well. Since your consumers attention is most likely to
be split between a handset, laptop, TV or tablet it seems to me it would make sense
to follow up the message you have just spend millions of dollars on across
multiple channels… I don’t know, maybe its just me.
Maybe this type of spend is only suitable for
brands with strong online presence. At least this way the effectiveness of the advert
can be measured through the very delivery channels. Which is the brands bread
and butter Darren Rovell’s account in the below article speaks volume on how
important this can be. Reebok won acclaim for the Terrible Terry Tate campaign…
that is until only 55% polled remembered it was advertising Reebok. Compare
this to Monster.com and the success of its
‘When I grow up’ campaign. No one can deny an increase in resume uploads
from 83,000 to 2.3 million on its website 24 hours after the advert aired was a
all out success for the brand AWARENESS if not anything else.
This is why my sizeable blood pumping heart
muscle belongs to those companies who realize the value in creating a
multi-channel communication strategy and the synergy between TV and subsequent
social media or dot-com campaigns. At least this way companies give themselves
more of a fighting chance for strong brand advocacy, brand building and overall
buzz for the brand.
In closing I’m not going to sit here in The
Brand Avenger Ivory Tower and tell you not to invest $4 million in a 30 second
advert. But if you are going to follow the other companies and jump off the big
TV spend cliff at least make sure you either have wings in the form of an
integrated message or a padded cushion in the form of an adequate measurement
method.
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