Football has always been my favorite sport to watch. I’ve never been one of those people who watches the Super Bowl just for the commercials. Even if my team isn’t in the game, I’m still interested. But, that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy watching advertisers battle it out on one of TV’s biggest nights.
This year, I found the commercials were overall a little lackluster. There were a couple that got me laughing, but none that had me rolling on the floor. My favorite, by far, was the campaign by Coca Cola. I think they truly set the bar high for the future of Super Bowl (and year-round) advertising. Although the commercials themselves were clever and cute, what really stole my heart and captured my attention was the Web component of their campaign. Through a Facebook app, you could watch the Coca Cola bears react to the game in real time. One bear was rooting for the Giants, and one for the Patriots. It was a feat of technology, and I give major props to Coke and their ad agency for the creativity that went into this campaign. I had my laptop open the whole game, and found myself looking to the bears to see if their reactions were the same as mine. Most of the time, they were. Little animated bears captured the excitement, stress, disappointment, hope, and many more emotions that real fans were feeling. What’s more, each bear had an “Internet-enabled” device and they tweeted their feelings and taunted each other throughout the game.
As much as I loved this campaign, there was one flaw that I found: Not enough people knew about it. I heard about the bears because I read Mashable and saw this article a couple of weeks ago. My dad watched the game with me, and although he enjoyed having the bears on our second screen, it’s not something he would have done himself. I texted a friend during the game who I knew would appreciate the cuteness, and she had no idea about it until I told her. When my co-workers and I dissected the Super Bowl commercials at lunch yesterday, none of them knew about the bears either. They are all under 30. Maybe Coke got the word out and I just didn’t see it…but neither did most of the people I know. Promoting a cross media campaign like this can be a challenge, but I definitely don’t think this innovative idea got as much attention as it deserved.
What did you think of the commercials? Did you watch the bears? Do you think other brands will follow Coke’s example and up their creativity?
