Sunday, February 7, 2010

Think Beyond the 30 seconds You Just Purchased

The New Orleans Saints won their first Super Bowl at their first Super Bowl appearance. But what could be described as the social network era's first Super Bowl was not won by any advertiser.

How many of us watching the game also had a laptop or smart phone right next to the chips and dips? I know I did. We were posting comments on Facebook and Twitter all night during the game. You could even associate big plays to slowness or downtime on Twitter. But which advertiser had the vision to take advantage of this new era in the Super Bowl? Nobody that I could see. Major FAIL.

Could you imagine what PR a company could have received if they had a ad that directed viewers to visit Twitter or Facebook and take some action? If they did this all at once you don't think they could even have possibly brought down the website? What if they actually put together a campaign on the social networks, you would get more miles than just the 30 seconds you paid for. Remember all these Super Bowl ads are now getting replayed across YouTube and other sites.

Think beyond the 30 seconds you just purchased. Use those 30 seconds to kickoff a longer promotion that people will get involved with and the media might even pick up as a news story because of the possible impact of engaging millions of users at one time.