Robert Passikoff

President

Brand Keys

At a time when the economy has been less than sterling there’s some good news in the sports arena. Apparently Super Bowl advertising spots are in tremendous demand, with NBC selling out all its commercial airtime for the February 5th Indianapolis-based game with average 30-second commercial spots going for $3.5-4 million.

So good for NBC, but the real question is, when all is said and done, what did the companies really get? Advertisers can prove they got the time they paid for, and an exceptionally large audience, but in terms of real-world accountability – even with links, tweets, and digital tie-ins – from an ad POV they get no proof that this expensive buy actually did anything for them; will the audience remember it, or think well of the advertised brand - let alone buy the product! They won’t know if their efforts engaged the target audience. Entertainment and exposure is one thing. Engagement and sales are quite another.

To remedy that, as we do every year, Brand Keys is fielding the 2012 Super Bowl Media Survey. Like our Customer Loyalty Index, it’s created to tease out respondents’ true behaviors. The process quantifies the brand equity increase (or decrease) that results from advertising on any event – n this case, the Super Bowl – and reports the “return” or “loss” gained from the advertising effort.

The survey results correlate highly with respondents’ true attitudinal and behavioral patterns – and are reliable predictors of future behavior toward the advertised brand. Basically it answers the question: Is my marketing exercise going to engage consumers or will I just be burning money?!

Televised events like the Super Bowl – aka “Branded Entertainment” – have long been used to showcase “creative” advertising. But ultimately all TV spots - no matter how terrifically creative – are judged by how well they engage customers, drive sales, and build the advertiser's brand.

The good news for NBC is that there are spots available during the pre-game show and there’s even a waiting list of advertisers in case one brand or another decides not to advertise. The better news for advertisers is they can measure effects before they write a check.

And at a time when everyone’s being pressed for greater strategic and monetary accountability, we think that’s what’s really super!