The REAL Winners and Losers of The Super Bowl
The Super Bowl. It's the battle to see who's the best of the best, the toughest of the tough. Okay, it's usually a battle to see if the team you hate the least will win or not. The real winners and losers in the Super Bowl, however, are usually no where near the field.
Advertisers are the real players in this game. A good Super Bowl advertising campaign can gain massive exposure for a company and turn it around. Don't believe me, think of Apple's 1984 commercial -- it told us virtually nothing about the Macintosh, and yet, people still talk about it today. There's also GoDaddy.com, formerly just a website in a sea of many that will register you a dot com name. Then a series of Super Bowl ad campaigns has turned it into one of the most popular domain name registration sites. Many dotcoms have also put all their eggs in one hat with Super Bowl commercials and gone bust when the new customers never showed up. Yes indeed, it's quite the day for CEO's to play Russian Roulette.
So with this in mind, here is my completely biased look at the real winners and losers on Super Bowl Sunday.
Loser - Burger King
From the people that brought you chicken fries comes a song and dance number reminiscent of the Ziegfeld Follies. I wonder how much this commercial cost to produce. Certainly, there's nothing wrong with having a big budget for a commercial, in fact, some of the best ever HAVE to cost a lot of money. But, can you recoup the losses of your own advertising budget? If the answer is no, then you don't go through with the campaign, that simple, it's like spending money you don't have, you can do it, but it's usually a poor decision. And why is it a poor decision for BK? Well, they sell Whoppers, that's why. And most everyone who wants a whopper, is already going to get one whether or not they say a bunch of hot girls dressed as ketchup and mayo. My point is, it's not likely to bring in a few million extra dollars, which is likely what this song and dance show cost. Maybe that's why they haven't had a commercial here in eleven years.
Winner - MacGyver
Finally, MacGyver returns to the airwaves in a Mastercard commercial. Yes, it's complete with stunts and explosions and the typical MacGyver fare, and was almost certainly more expensive to produce than BK's, but it still wins by a mile. Why? Um, hello, maybe because it's freaking MacGyver so shut the hell up, ok? In all seriousness, using Richard Dean Anderson to send up MacGyver in this manner is a brilliant move for Mastercard. Isn't it obvious? How many guys watching the Super Bowl, old and young alike, were/are MacGyver fans? It's a number I project to be at least in the hundreds of millions. This causes all these viewers to talk about this commercial the next time they see one of their buddies, which causes him to tell a friend, and on and on we go. Spending a buttload of money to get Richard Dean Anderson escape from a building with an air freshener = 7 million dollars. Word of mouth advertising = Priceless.
Advertisers are the real players in this game. A good Super Bowl advertising campaign can gain massive exposure for a company and turn it around. Don't believe me, think of Apple's 1984 commercial -- it told us virtually nothing about the Macintosh, and yet, people still talk about it today. There's also GoDaddy.com, formerly just a website in a sea of many that will register you a dot com name. Then a series of Super Bowl ad campaigns has turned it into one of the most popular domain name registration sites. Many dotcoms have also put all their eggs in one hat with Super Bowl commercials and gone bust when the new customers never showed up. Yes indeed, it's quite the day for CEO's to play Russian Roulette.
So with this in mind, here is my completely biased look at the real winners and losers on Super Bowl Sunday.
Loser - Burger KingFrom the people that brought you chicken fries comes a song and dance number reminiscent of the Ziegfeld Follies. I wonder how much this commercial cost to produce. Certainly, there's nothing wrong with having a big budget for a commercial, in fact, some of the best ever HAVE to cost a lot of money. But, can you recoup the losses of your own advertising budget? If the answer is no, then you don't go through with the campaign, that simple, it's like spending money you don't have, you can do it, but it's usually a poor decision. And why is it a poor decision for BK? Well, they sell Whoppers, that's why. And most everyone who wants a whopper, is already going to get one whether or not they say a bunch of hot girls dressed as ketchup and mayo. My point is, it's not likely to bring in a few million extra dollars, which is likely what this song and dance show cost. Maybe that's why they haven't had a commercial here in eleven years.
Winner - MacGyverFinally, MacGyver returns to the airwaves in a Mastercard commercial. Yes, it's complete with stunts and explosions and the typical MacGyver fare, and was almost certainly more expensive to produce than BK's, but it still wins by a mile. Why? Um, hello, maybe because it's freaking MacGyver so shut the hell up, ok? In all seriousness, using Richard Dean Anderson to send up MacGyver in this manner is a brilliant move for Mastercard. Isn't it obvious? How many guys watching the Super Bowl, old and young alike, were/are MacGyver fans? It's a number I project to be at least in the hundreds of millions. This causes all these viewers to talk about this commercial the next time they see one of their buddies, which causes him to tell a friend, and on and on we go. Spending a buttload of money to get Richard Dean Anderson escape from a building with an air freshener = 7 million dollars. Word of mouth advertising = Priceless.
