Week 10: Super Bowl Advertising

This year's Super Bowl is bound to have more social media advertising than years prior. With Vine and Instagram Video having become exceptionally more popular in the last few months, these two apps are exceptionally likely to be used for advertising both during the Super Bowl and in the months leading up to it. Another recent addition to the social media advertising is the "buy" buttons that are rumored to be coming to Twitter and Facebook, a feature which will be very useful come Super Bowl time. With the convenience of having products available for purchase through popular social media sites, advertising and potential sales can be taken to a whole new level.
In previous years, Super Bowl advertising was an opportunity for companies to broadcast themselves with the potential of reaching millions of viewers via television. Now, they can do that and more. The freedom of social media allows a company to use a TV commercial to advertise their products/services and then provide a social media plug (hashtag or Facebook domain) that consumers can then resort to for further updates. Traditional Super Bowl advertising was all about connecting with consumers on a personal level through commercials; however, last year's game and its advertising proved that this personal connection is possible even with Vine and Instagram Video, which are much shorter than the standard commercial ad.
This year, advertising will have to be taken a step further than the standard Facebook like and Twitter favorite/follow. I think that, to keep consumers' attention, more companies will have to actively involve viewers in ad campaigns similar to the Oreo Snack Hacks and Qdoba Queso Showdown. By allowing consumers to contribute to a product, said consumers are much more likely to be interested in the product itself, which could then result in better profits for companies. Most people who watch the Super Bowl do so for the commercials; the advertisements are renowned for being entertaining, and allow companies the opportunity to reach a much larger group of people than normal. Another company that took advantage of consumer engagement is Lays potato chips; their "Do Us a Flavor" campaign was wildly successful after giving buyers the opportunity to actually create a flavor of chip and become partially famous and win money because of it. Though these ad campaigns were not necessarily Super Bowl advertisements, they were successful at engaging buyers and increasing sales. Therefore, I think that the ads during the biggest football game of the year this year will use Vine and Instagram Video to their advantage, make use of stop-motion video, and use the resulting increase in sales and social media traffic to gauge how much of an impact their advertisements had on the public.

As crazy as it seems, with the game being so far away, digital marketing is already gearing up for the big day: http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/forget-black-friday-digital-marketers-have-already-moved-on-to-superbowl-xlix-46269/