Super Bowl Commercials – McDonald’s Hashtag – Lessons from SOPA
With Social Media, Super Bowl Commercials Live On
Recent social media research shows that the $3.5 million cost of a 30-second Super Bowl ad may actually be a good deal. Venables Bell and Partners, a San Francisco ad agency, using metrics based on the 2011 Super Bowl’s online viewership and exposure, predicted that 35 million Facebook users will share their favorite Super Bowl commercials with their friends. If you take into account that Facebook profiles average 130 friends, the commercials are supposed to collectively aggregate 4.5 billion impressions. And that’s only one site, and does not include video hosts such as YouTube and Vimeo.
The high number of potential shares would extend the life of Super Bowl commercials well beyond its television airtime. Agencies have already taken this into account, creating preview commercials and setting up storylines. We wouldn’t be surprised to see more brands airing commercials solely focused on entertaining viewers.
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McDonald’s Loses Control of Twitter Hashtag
McDonald’s took to Twitter last week to further promote their organic potato farmer endorsement. Under the hashtag #McDStories, the fast food chain tweeted about its potato suppliers, in an effort to raise awareness about their healthy qualities. This relatively common PR tactic quickly backfired, as the hashtags started to appear in tweets associating McDonald’s with drug use and food poisoning. Animal rights activist group PETA even got a few shots in, accusing the restaurant of using mechanically separated white meat.
Clearly McDonald’s did not consider the consequences of reaching out on Twitter, and it has left them worse off than before. More than ever, when it comes to social media, companies need to be prepared for all outcomes if they hope to avoid a likewise disaster.
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Marketing Lessons from SOPA
We saw the anti-SOPA blackouts take the Internet by storm and stop the bill in its tracks. It’s the latest example of a social cause harnessing the ever growing capabilities of the Internet.
The reason for the anti-SOPA protest’s success was winning the sympathy of the people. Instead of quarantining the fight to industry and politics, movement leaders such as Wikipedia and Reddit included in their concerns the people’s right to free speech and the benefits of shared knowledge. Once they involved the public’s personal concerns in the issue, garnering widespread support was just a matter of posting a few links and directing their voices to the right places.
The anti-SOPA protest appealed to the people, and made it convenient for them to vocalize their outrage. This strategy highlights a pivotal trend of relevancy that we must embrace to be successful.
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