house of beer, asteroid, etc. - bud light

tebow - focusonthefamily.com

classical - hundai

the shuffle - boost mobile

betty white/abe vigoda - snickers

dog collar, playing nice, funeral, flowers in a box - doritos
doritos ended all its tv spots with the URL of a site which links all its digital efforts, SnackStrongProductions.com. their past efforts feature some brilliant work (Hotel 626, Asylum 626, and Unlock Xbox among others), as well as crashthesuperbowl.com, which carries all the user-submitted commercials. not much in the way of interaction, but a single hub of digital activities makes a lot of sense for a brand with such disparate efforts.
simpsons - coke
there's no URL in an otherwise decent commercial. if you look up the site anyway, there's no acknowledgement of a super bowl, much less a commercial. surprising for a company that understands the power of a good story.
massage - go daddy
the one and only nice thing you can say about GoDaddy.com is, at least they understand how traditional media can drive digital traffic. (happy 12th birthday to that last point!) both TV spots ended with the call to action, "see more now at godaddy.com (WARNING! WEB CONTENT UNRATED)" is other web content unrated? yes. is there a less likeable spokesperson than danica patrick? no. would this spot have been much less predictable if it featured tim tebow and his mom? i think they would've just made it boringer. as for the footage that was "too hot for tv": good god. the overall formula is this: the harder you're going to make your audience work, the better the experience has to be.
musical beaver - monster.com
the tv spot featured a touching story of a fiddle-playing beaver. the URL was monster.com because "godaddy.com" was already taken. if you go on the site, the fiddle player has taken over the first page, though there's plenty of functional navigation surrounding it. but if you wait a moment or so, the beaver (and any reference to the super bowl sponsorship) is replaced by more functionality. if you click on it before it disappears, you get taken to FiddleAFriend.com. here, you can send a customized monk-e-mail to a friend.
bachelor party, your tires or your life - bridgestone
bridgestone supported its super bowl buy with a dedicated page at bridgestonetire.com/superbowl. it featured both spots. out of the 100,000,000+ people who watched the super bowl, 14 have made comments on one of the spots. i don't have a calculator here to check the ROI on that. ah, but at least they're not filtering the comments. on the splash page, however, they are filtering their twitter feed to feature only rave reviews of their commercials. so very silly.
timothy richmond - cars.com
cars.com's commercial ended (appropriately) with cars.com. the website had a wee sliver of a super bowl commercial mention at the top of their website. once clicked, you could watch the commercial again, or watch "exclusive web videos" where the star of the commercial wears out his cuteness. when you have a character-driven idea, seems like you'd maybe want to expand on that character's story. i don't know, maybe?
wear no pants - dockers
the dockers' spot ends with dockers.com/freepants. once there, a small banner asks if visitors want to see the "game day tv ad" but most of the real estate is about how dockers is giving away thousands of khakis. other headlines include "behold the second dawn of man" and "wear the pants." it seems like three ideas at work here, all of which could potentially turn into something blog-worthy, but none succeeding. one of the more confusing supporting efforts. look for yourself.

casual fridays - career builder
taking a page from from the cars.com playbook, careerbuilder.com ended their commercial with careerbuilder.com. once on the site, a visitor gets the usual careerbuilder.com site and... oh wait a minute! you know those really irritating page takeover ads that block what you're reading? well, they've installed one of those on their own site. it asks visitors to help give careerbuilder's commercial a higher ranking among super bowl spots. like Go Daddy, careerbuilder's site also features a commercial that's "too hot for tv." like Go Daddy, what careerbuilder should've said was that it's "too hot for conservative marketing committees."
shape up - skechers
skechers had a couple spots but no URL. visiting www.skechers.com, you find the standard skechers website, and an option to watch the "Big Game Commercial" in the bottom right corner.
sorry, i just dozed off. where were we?
comfortable skin - dove

calling dr. love - dr. pepper

punxsutawney polamalu - tru tv
tru tv ended with trutv.com. on the site, the only evidence of the super bowl was banner ads for fellow super bowl sponsor, dove for men.
man's last stand - dodge
another part of the Emasculated Man Series, the manifesto of wussy men with cool cars ended with dodge.com. at the site, the focus was pure, functional commerce. a video below the fold included more manifesto for the kind of men who need quote marks around the word "men." knocks aside, their site and new logo are a significant improvement over previous efforts.
punch buggy - vw

various chicken commercials - denny's
denny's didn't put their URL at the end of the commercials, but i have a guy who knows everyone's URL and he told it to me. denny's commercials were focused on giving away free breakfast on tuesday. as for the site? it had some decent tie-ins including selling chicken t-shirts (that's t-shirts with chickens on them, not actual shirts that chickens wear), and encouraging visitors to become a denny's fan on Facebook to check out future videos of the chickens. a smart way to keep folks engaged beyond a single website visit.
the griswolds - home away.com

sumo wrestler - kgb
there was no site given for kgb, though they were smart enough to realize the name "kgb" won't be treated well by search engines, so they bought key words. good for them. once a site was located, there was a subtle nod to their super bowl sponsorship, and a video was well down the fold. something tells me they're not going to be in the Big Game next year.
wolf style - etrade
etrade had no URL, and there was no mention of super-anything on their site. however, the baby diversifying his portfolio "wolf style" was enough to forgive them.
snapshot of america - census
the us census ran a commercial, and encouraged people to visit 2010census.gov. i did, and saw this:

mathematically speaking, i think here's where we're at:
an encouragement to watch a game that took place days ago + forcing a marketing idea into a sentence = confusion.
search on - google
not only was there no URL at the end, there wasn't even a logo. i'm just guessing that spot was google's. of course, there was no need for google to have a tie into their website. as soon as you saw the spot's easily parody-able-ness, you knew it would have one of the more lasting digital presences of any of the super bowl spots, even without the support of google. that's knowing your audience.
partying toys - kia
kia's commercial ended with their basic kia.com website. on the site, one of the rotating visuals on the home page was from the tv spot, and you could watch the Big Game ad via a link below. but beyond the re-airing of a commercial, there was little tie-in.
internet tv - vizio
vizio's tag (vizio.com/via) also went with the re-airing of their commercial on the site. and i have to admit, after watching the commercial repeatedly on their website, i really came to like the commercial. on a related note, it's amazing how poorly a dry sense of humor translates on the internet.
human dolphins - emerald nuts

stealing squirrel - honda

paper or plastic - audi
the audi commercial featured no site, and there was nary a trace of the spot on their website. but the commercial did win the coveted "Best Use of Cheap Trick Award," so we'll let the lack of synergy be forgotten this time.
just one box - taco bell
the taco bell spot featured charles barkley. the website is too busy featuring ads about the fourthmeal and the drive-thru diet to bother with the silly little super bowl commercial.
removed spine, tv for the road - flo tv
flo.tv's commercial featured a will.i.am remix of the who's "my generation" song. as for their website? it had the commercial prominently featured, as well as links to press coverage of the commercial, and the opportunity to download the song while donating to haiti. for a marketer i hadn't come across, it was an impressive introduction.
our best inventions - intel

all in all, it remains pretty disappointing to see so many smart marketers not take advantage of the attention their media buy has created. as chicago cub fans, michigan state football fans, and halley's comet fans say...
maybe next year.
2 comments:
I love it when someone else does my homework for me!
no problem. please let me know what grade we got.
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