Super Bowl Advertisers Shoot Mobile Blanks

If things hadn’t been following the same tired, now decade-old script, my face would’ve matched the 30 seconds of air during the second quarter of Super Bowl LII—blank.

Just how many of the more than 100 million in the U.S. watching the game had a mobile device either in hand or within four feet? My bet would’ve been at least 80 percent.

And just how many times did advertisers paying up to $5 million for a 30-second spot ask viewers to do something with their phones? Even by giving a few of the brands the benefit of the doubt, the percentage was less than 5 percent.

It again was as if we were looking at a telecast from 1975.

Among the misses on not-so-Super Sunday:

If Wendy’s fresh hamburgers are really better than those frozen at McDonald’s, the spot was a perfect opportunity to give folks the incentive to try them with a mobile call to action for a discount, a free one or buy-one, get-one offer. One way would’ve been through a call to action to text in for a coupon. Then Wendy’s could’ve asked for an opt-in for future offers.

In 2009, Arby’s did so with a product introduction on Jimmy Kimmel Live. More than 100,000 people responded. Approximately 65,000 then opted-in to join the mobile loyalty club. The restaurant created 172 local databases. There was nothing sexy about it, but the buy paid off for months, if not years.

For what it’s worth, Wendy’s did engage effectively in social, for example, tweeting, “If you’re frozen, you’re gonna get burned.”

I’ll remember Super Bowl LII as the time when several advertisers championed the good in humanity. MassMutual kicked off this effort in the pregame show by highlighting positivity, courage and kindness. While it inspired and brought goose bumps to the three of us in my viewing area, it did not offer up a way for us to engage and participate in future efforts beyond attempting to send us to unsung.com which was part education on the program and part education (sales effort) on the company’s financial products.

Mobile is for action. except, obviously, during Super Bowl telecasts.

Kia’s “Dream On” ad with Steven Tyler was an ideal springboard to push the Stinger with mobile. It’s common for automakers to enable consumers to customize a vehicle in an app. Augmented reality could’ve put the Stinger in one’s driveway. But none of this came to be on Sunday. Only a #kiastinger hashtag that had to be searched for.

The movie houses collectively spent tens of millions of dollars, yet their trailer-type ads for films due out months from now built fleeting excitement but no meaningful way for those interested to stay engaged. How about driving people to an app or mobile site for behind-the-scenes footage, a message from a movie star or a sweepstakes to win premiere passes?

On the plus side, Kraft did encourage viewers to create and upload family photos taken during the game. The creation of content certainly wasn’t a stretch given the fact that selfies are now as part of Super Sunday as dip and chips. But the effort was primarily promoted way before the kickoff on Twitter and Instagram, leaving most in the audience unaware that there was a user-generated effort going on.

The Kraft spot with the UGC late in the game was memorable, but not more than the selfie during halftime that featured Justin Timberlake and a young fan.

Also, while not the call to action I’ve been waiting for, the fact that TurboTax showed the ease of paying taxes on a mobile screen felt like some progress in moving the spots into the wireless era. And it was busy in social channels.

So it’s wait ‘til next year.

Will anything change? It’s been said that Super Bowl ads are for brand anthems, not for calls to act. But there are other reasons for noninviting, vintage-type efforts – many brands aren’t all in on mobile, silos frequently prevent “what’s best for the customer” initiatives, and, in many marketing organizations, creativity still sits as the top objective, not sales.

But Nick Foles did best Tom Brady, so anything is possible.

(first appeared on adweek.com - http://www.adweek.com/digital/in-mobile-super-bowl-marketers-still-struggle-to-think-beyond-the-hashtag/)

Unlike SXSW, the Mobile Marketing Forum Was About Business Results

I proposed a game at the start of this week’s Mobile Marketing Association’s Forum in New York where we would take a drink each time that we heard the word Meerkat.

My tweet stream the previous several days had been nothing short of overrun by Meerkats, which are live video streams sent from phones to all of one’s Twitter followers at once.

I figured that by noon on St. Patrick’s Day, Day 1 of the MMA event, we would all be as inebriated as some of those partying on Fifth Avenue.

I was wrong. There was nary a mention. And I believe that I now know why.

The introduction of something like Meerkat is made for the SXSW crowd, which includes those who crave shiny objects, first looks at innovation, and business models that could lead to great change.

That is actually in sharp contrast to what many came to hear at the MMA show – evidence of business results and proof that some of the products and services launched way before SXSW were moving boxes of tissues and bottles of ketchup while engaging mobile users in meaningful ways.

The most significant conversation in New York was around the latest SMoX (Smart Mobile Cross Marketing Effectiveness) research that was conducted by the MMA and some of its largest and most influential members. Aiming to scientifically assess the interaction of mobile channels and platforms in relation to the broader marketing mix (TV, radio, magazines, Internet, etc.), the exercise was intended to help marketers understand the impact of consumers’ shifting media habits, as well as how to optimize their marketing mix by rebalancing investments.

Here’s what we discovered:

In Coca Cola's Gold Peak Tea campaign, mobile drove 25% of top of mind awareness and 6% of sales despite only 5% of budget.

Mobile in Walmart's Back to School initiative produced a 14% change in shopping intent despite only 7% of the marketing spend.

In a travel card campaign, MasterCard saw mobile display and mobile video work twice as hard in terms of the number of people it converted on image per dollar spent.

The overall takeaway from the new U.S.-focused SMoX research was that the optimal spend for mobile is in the double digits - far more than is being allocated.

Adam Broitman, VP of Global Digital Marketing, MasterCard, called SMoX “a real breakthrough in the mobile marketing industry and the first thorough and comprehensive industry study that proves the true value of mobile.”

Said Tom Daly, Coca-Cola’s mobile lead, “It gives all the teams, particularly in the United States, something to think about.”

Here’s some of what else caught my eyes and ears in New York:

The hype would lead some to believe that paper and coin currency will be gone by the weekend given the advancements in Apple Pay and other mobile wallet products. But, according to MasterCard’s Michael Donnelly, 85% of the world's transactions are still made in cash.

We knew that long-form content has an uphill battle on mobile. And that was before we heard this -- the focused attention span for a consumer is eight seconds, down from 12 in 2000, according to Gfk. For perspective, GfK told us, a goldfish has a nine-second attention span.

Brandon Rhoten, vice president of digital and social media with Wendy’s, gave marketers like me who are a bit long in the tooth a pass on knowing everything about everything.

“There is no reason we should know how to use Tumblr,” he said. “It’s not where we grew up. So the biggest piece of advice I give is, ‘Be humble and back up and say ‘I don’t know what I’m doing.’ Go to your partners and talk to them. How can you fit the context of that platform at the same time you stand out?”

Rhoten’s take on Meerkat? Even if a “solution” is perceived by some as cool, if it hasn’t scaled or shown that it can move cheeseburgers, it doesn’t make it into a marketing plan dead set on generating business success.

(article first appeared on Mobile Marketer - http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/opinion/columns/20025.html)