Category: Paid Advertising

These are our top super bowl commercials from the bengals vs. the rams, 2021-2022 Super Bowl (FROM AN ADVERTISER’S PERSPECTIVE)

A lot of nostalgia going on in these commercials, so let’s get right into it.

NOTE: these are not in a particular order.

  1. E-Trade’s baby is back!

E-Trade is trying to catch fire again from their over-used baby commercials from years and years ago. It’s akin to the Budweiser folks trying to bring back the frogs. Both didn’t work. It’s fun, but not sure it’s enough to push the needle on people using sofi or robinhood instead.

 

  1. Toyota does well with emotions

A couple emotional commercials were produced for the super bowl by Toyota. The one that got me the most was the Paralympic brothers. Two brothers, one ages into macular degeneration, the other guides him through voice. Beautiful story and emotional.

 

  1. BMW + Arnold

This is just good suspense more than anything, the commercial was kind of a dud. But the build-up was great. They used Arnold’s social media to tease that the Terminator would be playing Zeus in an upcoming movie and to watch the Super Bowl for the announcement. It’s an overused play in the play book that works most of the time. It worked here and had plenty of media coverage prior to the game.

 

  1. Coinbase QR Code Ad

This was the worst, best, worst again advertisement ever. I had people texting me reactions to this. It’s the worst because of how boring it is and some of the colors didn’t work on TV. It’s the Best because EVERYONE scanned the code – the site even crashed at one point. And then it’s the worst again because the payoff was insanely underwhelming. Memes hit the internet almost immediately.
Coinbase Failed QR Code

  1. Meta’s Quest 2 Dog

We got back to nostalgia with Meta’s dog. A fun story about an old pizza parlor animatronic that finds life in the metaverse. He’s reunited with his friends – after a museum curator saves his life – on the Quest 2 device.

 

  1. Michelob pays the big bucks

Michelob went all out spending money on a ton of celebrities (mostly sports). Payton Manning (Hall-of-fame QB), Jimmy Butler (NBA Guard), Steve Buscemi (Teddy from the Big Lebowski), and they drop the mic when they roll out Serena Williams at the end.

 

  1. NFL Gaming Animations

The NFL didn’t really have a point to this commercial. If you were to try and pull one out of this commercial it’s a male vs. female equality message. The kids play a video game, the characters come to life and wreck their house, the parents return home to find the house in shambles. It’s just a really fun and entertaining piece.

 

  1. Google Pixel 6 Camera (w/ Lizzo)

Just a great commercial for a new product. This camera tries to tackle the issues with darker skin complexions. It’s been an issue with photography since the beginning of time. Camera’s have a hard time with darker skinned individuals. With Google’s Real Tone technology, they’re claiming that’s a thing of the past.

 

  1. Greenlight’s Ty Burrell is going broke!

Really well executed way to show us all (young and old alike) that saving still has a place in this new economy. Ty’s character buys everything he wants, but ends up going broke. Switch to the scene with a parent instructed his children on how to manage money. Greenlight is a debit card for kids, so this worked really well in my opinion.

 

  1. Alexa can read your mind

Funny ad spot with the couple in which their alexa becomes part of the family, then takes it a bit to far when she starts reading their minds. The hilarity grows as it switches back and forth in the minds of each spouse. Really funny way to give a nod to conspiracy theorists out there without being condescending.

 

  1. Scientology’s inspirational(?!?) attempt

It’s not a question about supporting scientology or not. Taking an objective point of view, the ad heavily targets the youth by taking advantage of the mental health issues plaguing this generation. It doesn’t work at all and is by far the worst commercial of the Super Bowl block.

Here’s text messages I received in real-time from two different people:
“Yo, did you see that scientology commercial? Creepy”
“That scientology commercial was too funny (sarcastic), how massive was the check to get that on there?”

 

 

Runner Ups

Paul Rudd and Seth Rogan for Lays

Ana Kendrick for Rocket Mortgage

Dr. Evil for General Motors

A good batch of runner ups, just a little overplayed.

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The ENDURANCE Goal for Paid Campaigns

At ENDURANCE, we strive to average a 4 to 1 ROI (aka ROAS) across all paid executions for our clients. This means that for every dollar in spend, their paid advertising returns $4 dollars (at minimum). And we understand that cannot always happen – sometimes an industry is so competitive, that having a 1:1 ROAS (return on ad spend) is good enough because the brand recognition is worth it. Or sometimes you might go months without a sale, but each sale is worth x1000 times more than your monthly spend. There are many other situations where a 4:1 ROAS just isn’t possible (market competition, platform limitations, etc.), but that’s our goal nonetheless and being up front and honest with clients before we jump into spending their campaign budget about the expected ROAS has never steered us wrong.

We’d like to share the results of a recent client (we’ll call Acme Co.) who came to us only for a limited time. They spend their paid ad budget on advertising during back to school months (a very competitive space, especially in the student back to school realm we were playing in), during the rest of the year, their products are already in big box stores, so paid advertising is really only an options during a small back to school window.

 

The Challenge – to beat a 3:1 Return on Ad Spend

The agency we inherited the client account from is very, very good at what they do. They are a leading paid agency in the United States, one we know very well for their  management of large commercial brands. Acme Co. was large, but not the largest client we’ve ever worked with, and the transition from the old agency to us was shaky.

The previous agency was able to maintain a 3:1 ROAS in 2018 using a major influencer – still an impressive feat given the situation and industry – and we were asked to beat it (without a major influencer).

Our Paid Results:

Here are a few screenshots of our results…

Snapshot - First 15 days, all Google Mediums
First 15 days – All Google Channels
Paid Performance Highlight for Search
Last 15 day Snapshot – Google Search Campaign
Paid Performance - Google Shopping Campaign
Last 15 Day Snapshot – Shopping

 

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