Cymfony's Super Bowl Analysis is a Double Award Winner!

AMEC_Awards_logo-[Converted]  Pardon me while I toot our horn and go blatantly hard sell for one post!

I'm pleased to announce that the Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communications recognized our Super Bowl Advertising Audience Impact Report with 2 awards!

First, we took the Gold in the category "Best Use of Measurement for a Single Event". The award judges cited our combination of traditional and social media as a "benchmark for the future" and praised it as "an intellectual piece of work" that "had real value for advertisers".

In fact, they liked it so much the judges also awarded it Grand Prix -- Innovation Award. In explaining why we were selected for this award too, the judges said it was a "ground-breaking analysis" and we earned "Top marks for the idea and the execution"

Thanks, AMEC! We are honored!

PS. If you are with a brand that is advertising on the Super Bowl, or an agency for one of those brands, we are offering this service again this year! Come to the Super Bowl page of the Cymfony site to learn more.

Posted by Jim Nail on November 25, 2008 at 05:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Super Bowl Ads -- It's Not About the Game!!!

A WSJ article today says that many long-time advertisers are wondering if, in this tough economy, they should invest $3 million for :30 seconds on the game. The key is not the game: they key to ROI is the PR activity before the game.

Come to my ARF webinar tomorrow -- "Effective PR and Word of Mouth Strategies to Maximize a Brand's Investment in Super Bowl Advertising" -- to learn more but here are the topline findings from two years of analysis Cymfony has done on Super Bowl advertising:

  • PR adds significant audience. The prospect of reaching 90 million people on February 1, 2009 makes media planners drool. But PR can add brand reach prior to the game: Doritos drove 40 million impressions prior to the 2007 Super Bowl.
  • To get WOM, drive PR. Spurring word of mouth discussion after the game is a key goal -- that's why brands and agencies go to great pains to come up with breakthrough creative. But the brands that are successful in post-game are consistently the brands that get the most pre-game coverage in traditional media.
  • Social media discussion is a good proxy for likeability. For the 2008 Super Bowl, we collaborated with our colleagues at TNS who conducted a classic ad likeability research survey and compared their results to the "favorability" of social media posts. The same10 advertisers were on the top of both lists. While the social media audience displays some unique characteristics, their opinions accurately reflect the broader population.

So GM, Fedex, Monster, Pedigree, and others who are on the fence: tune in to my webinar before you make your final decision!

Posted by Jim Nail on November 11, 2008 at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Learning from the Obama Campaign

Since Tuesday I've seen lots of stories and posts about what marketers and PR people can learn from president-elect Obama's use of social media. My main takeaway: wait. There's more to learn in the coming year as President Obama mobilizes his social media skills to use the power of "We, the People" to trump the lobbyists and legislators who will try to advance their own agenda over his.

There's no doubt that the Obama campaign masterfully used social media to mobilize new voters. There's no question in my mind that this race will mark a watershed in campaign media stratgy not seen since the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy campaign ushered in the era of political television strategy.

But the real story is just beginning. A savvy social media user like Obama won't disband it, in the way he disbands his campaign staff. In the coming year, President Obama will mobilize this network to help him drive change and repel the usual Beltway obstacles that are undoubtedly already plotting to drive the agenda their way.

This will be an even greater testament to the strength of American democracy than electing an African-American to the presidency, which is rightly hailed as a great moment in America. If he can leverage social media to offset the forces of money and special interests that drive so much of our national agenda, an historic election will be followed by an even more epochal change: a return to "We, the People" promoting the general welfare and not narrow interests.

Marketers and PR people take note: this will also signal the end of the campaign-oriented mentality of our current approach. It will usher in an era of understanding that a brand relationship doesn't begin and end with a purchase or a coupon redemption, any more than a presidence begins and ends on election day. It is a living, breathing bond that can now be nurtured in a way impossible before the advent of social media. Strong brand bonds will trump even the best advertising and promotions of brands without this relationship.

Can the marketing and PR professions make this change?

Yes, we can!!

Posted by Jim Nail on November 6, 2008 at 04:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack

Transforming Research, Step 2: Cut the fat

At the ARF's Industry Leader Forum on October 29, many people commented that a lot of surveys are done and much of the data isn't used: data isn't believed, a particular question is a vestige that is no longer relevant, and myriad other reasons were given.

In the afternoon workshop I conducted, we were tasked with coming up with a new way to identify trends early. One of the questions the ARF asked us to address was "Assuming your budget won't increase, what would you give up in order to fund new techniques or approaches?" My group had no problems coming up with ways to cut back their current research. Prime among them was eliminating questions from tracking surveys that are no longer used.

Lunch speaker Joel Benenson of Benenson Strategy Group told one such story. A cosmetics maker hired him to conduct their tracking survey. Included among the attributes was the statement, "Makes me feel alluring." His question to the audience was "When was the last time you heard a woman say she felt alluring?" This drew knowing laughs from a large segment of the audience.

This language was probably right on in the '50's, maybe even the '60's. But it probably died out with the Women's Liberation movement of the '70's when women no longer had to use euphemisms and could openly admit that they wanted to feel sexy.

Why has this question survived if the language is so dated? The only possible answer is "comparability". But shouldn't relevance to the audience trump comparability? But who cares whether women considers your brand alluring, if they haven't wanted to be alluring for 30 years?

And this leads to one of the fundamental principles that research must adopt in order to transform: greater allegiance to the consumer than to the strictures of research purity. Research quality is an essential foundation of all our work. But quality shouldn't mean rigidity in the face of changing consumer needs and language.


Read my first post about the conference, Integrating Insights, here.

Posted by Jim Nail on November 3, 2008 at 03:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack