Ad Lessons from the Super Bowl

Selling or building brands?

Posted on February 6, 2007 | Permalink

By Lane Casteix

Business Week sponsors a web site called ADBOWL where customers can rate the Super Bowl ads. A lot can be learned from the winners and losers.

"...Year after year, Budweiser and Bud Light walk away with the ADBOWL crown. The marketers at Anheuser-Busch know that people watch the Super Bowl to have a good time, and that their desire for entertainment doesn't pause at the commercial breaks. Any given Bud spot may not make you want to buy a beer, but no brand-building advertising works that way. What a well-executed commercial will do is create affection for a brand, and over time, that affection will pay off in increased sales...." (Emphasis added.)

That paragraph pretty well sums it up for me. We lose sight of the purpose of advertising and what motivates the consumer to buy your products. If you stay focused on sales and lose sight of brand building you build a house of straw.

See the rest of the article by Steve McKee here.