Savvy B2B Marketing

I’m not afraid to admit that when I watch any TV program, I always watch the ads with as much enthusiasm as the show itself. But I am a marketing geek. Super Bowl Sunday is the one day of the year that the media and your average Joe unabashedly admit that ads can be fun and entertaining – not just a convenient break in the action for you to get a fresh beer or visit the restroom.

In case you missed the game – or the ads – Advertising Age has very nicely included all of them for replay on their website here:

http://adage.com/superbowl10/article?article_id=141954.

To recap: Men feeling emasculated by their wives and girlfriends was a favorite motif, played out in no fewer than three separate ads. The solution was to either:

a) Wash with Dove body wash for men

b) Buy a Dodge Charger

c) Get yourself a personal TV so you can watch the game while she shops

I personally found the Dove ad kind of cute, but the other two sort of mean-spirited toward women and frankly depressing for men. To identify with the message and buy the product, you would have to admit that you were hen-pecked. Not the most effective way to get buyers excited.

Another favorite theme was unattractive older people in their underpants. One ad was for CareerBuilder, called “Casual Fridays,” and the other was for Dockers. The one for Dockers made sense, because it was a promo to go to the website and register to win a free pair of pants. The job ad was still funny, but it was unfortunate that the two ads were placed back to back during the game, because it was a bit of chubby-legged, tighty-whitey overload.

While not technically underpants, another ad for Pop Secret and Emerald Nuts featured “real” people in their bathing suits acting like dolphins; memorable mostly because how ridiculous they looked bobbing around begging for almonds.

Budweiser went all out with nearly a dozen different ads showing throughout the evening. Unfortunately, they were mostly just silly and I was actually relieved when they brought out the boring old Clydesdales in one of the later ads.

My favorite ad of the evening? I can’t decide between the punch-buggy ad for Volkswagon or the Griswolds (Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo) for Home Away.

What was your favorite? Tell us in the comments section.

About the author: Kate Headen Waddell is a strategic copywriter specializing in web copy, white papers, case studies, solution briefs and other B2B marketing tools. You can visit her website at www.kateheaden.com.