The Super Bowl: Winning Without the Ads

With the cost of a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl averaging more than $5 million dollars, many marketers opt out of it either because their budgets don’t match up, they’re not investing deeply in advertising, or they’ve just decided at this point it is too late. However, with today’s digital capabilities and 70.3% of adults estimated to be using another digital device while they’re watching TV, there are ample opportunities to capture attention before, during and even after the game. Here are a few easier ideas to consider:

Before the Game:

Amp-up social listening. This is a chance to learn who are fans of what team, what they’re engaged with and what their plans are. If you are equipped, you can employ AI here to quickly segment customers with these preferences. Continue this during the game as well.
Pre-game specials. 80% of New Year’s resolutions are abandoned by the second week in February, and if you’re like many, you use the Super Bowl to eat whatever you want. Send customers targeted promotions with limited time offers ending before the Super Bowl. You don’t have to be a national pizza chain to do this – as a matter of fact, this type of effort is great for smaller businesses to try and encourage people to order and prepare early, with incentives to do so.

Try a referral promotion. If you’re in food/beverage, gaming, or travel/transportation, you’ll likely see an increase in app usage during the game vs. other Sundays. Organize a contest or incentive and tell customers to share, hashtag, retweet, or post about the promotion in attempts to increase your overall CRM audience.
Reward for engagement. Tell your customers to check in with the brand and leverage chatbots to handle some of the interactions. This can be promoted via text, app, your site, or on social media. Create a scavenger hunt or activity for them to complete that progresses throughout the game. Ask customers to opt into the activity so that you can text them and manage it all live. This can end with smaller rewards and something larger that will generate earned media. This type of campaign would be great in association with a new product, service or initiative and can be continued long after the game.

Match social listening data back to your transactional information where available. Chances are, you’ll be able to create some customer profiles about spend, engagement and value to your brand and learn something new about the segment of the Super Bowl audience who is also engaged with your brand. From there, you can try out longer term offers and activate based on more robust knowledge of your customer base.
For those you’ve profiled as particular fans, you can always send congratulatory or conciliatory offers for morning coffee, treats, shopping or travel specials.

Julia Testa
VP, Strategy and Insights