Cadillac (D)
An ad has to stand out to be successful. This is always the case, but particularly so on the Super Bowl.
Cadillac ran a spot that featured a car driving around a track. This just isn’t enough for the Super Bowl.
GE (D)
Here is a simple question: Why is GE running ads on the Super Bowl?
There are a lot of smart people at GE, and they understand the value of a dollar. So why did they invest upwards of $10 million in the Super Bowl?
GE ran one spot that told us the company made turbines that generate electricity, and we need electricity to have cold beer. And what is the point of this message for the hundred million people who watched it, 99.9 million of whom will never interact with a turbine in their life? Is this an employee morale booster? Are we supposed to have fond feelings for GE?
GE ran another spot saying they are hiring workers at their appliance factory. Is this an attempt to build affinity for the brand when other companies have been laying people off?
There must be a reason why GE ran these ads, but we have to struggle to put the pieces together. Can anyone help us on this?
Lexus and Toyota (D)
This was a tough Super Bowl for the Toyota Corporation, owner of the Lexus and Toyota brands. Both brands received a D from the Kellogg panel, though for different reasons.
The Lexus spot just wasn’t distinctive. The ad featured a sleek new car breaking out of a box. This isn’t enough to stand out on the Super Bowl or to meet “Super Bowl worthy” expectations.
Toyota’s spot was about reinvention. It was a cute spot but didn’t say enough about the car: What is new about the car, anyway? It was pretty good to start with, so what is now improved?
Go Daddy (D)
The Kellogg panel put Go Daddy at the bottom of the list. There were two key problems. First, Go Daddy’s spots are highly polarizing, offending a portion of the panel. Second, the message really didn’t come across: What is the product, again? What is the benefit?
Still, Go Daddy has effectively used polarizing Super Bowl ads to build its brand. CEO Bob Parsons freely admits the ads offend many but put the brand on the map. Although the Super Bowl spots do not optimize their branding like other brands, it is the larger part of the media campaign they run that compensates for these faults, not justifies them.
Regarding GE, the Super Bowl seems an awfully expensive, mass market venue for B-to-B advertising. Remember the EDS “Herding Cats” spot? One of the most memorable SB ads ever, but 99.9% weren’t going to buy what they were selling.
Curious if you have a review for the TaxAct commercial? I believe it fit into the D category but I’d love to get your opinion?
Thanks for the comment! The Kellogg panel gave the TaxAct commercial a C. It was distinctive and engaging but the connection to the brand was weak (a linkage issue). You can see all the rankings here at http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/news/superbowl/pdfs/2012-final-results-ad-review.pdf.
Hello Tim,
I was similarly puzzled by the GE ad, but here’s one possible way to read the tea leaves.
Superbowl advertising planning/production takes place several months before the game. What was making big headlines in the fall of 2011? The populist movement of Occupy Wall Street, whose aims (though varied) had a large emphasis on wealthy individuals and corporations not paying their “fair share”. Only months before, GE made national news when it was disclosed that they paid $0 in 2010 taxes in the US, and actually reaped a $3.2 billion tax benefit – on a total US profit of $5.1 billion. This is no fluke, their accounting department is thought to be the best in the world, and includes former officials from the Treasury, the I.R.S. and virtually all the tax-writing committees in Congress.
There has also been a growing drumbeat to reform/simplify the tax code – which would take away this huge competitive advantage.
Taken together, these things might have given pause to GE executives, who may have decided to go on offense and spend a little money to put a friendly face on their prosaic & monolithic brand. So they created some nice vanilla ads that emphasized job creation and put their business in more human terms (“we keep your beer cold” & “we help cure cancer” – the two ends of the spectrum!), hoping to build a little equity in advance of a messy argument about taxes and corporate responsibility. And even though the OWS movement has dissipated, there still is a growing streak of populism, and I think GE would be smart to get ahead of the issue.
All that being said, maybe I’m giving them too much credit, and it was just average advertising created by a company too big and sprawling to focus.