dispatches from the new world of work

Tulipmania & Football

With one week to go, Superbowl advertising is nearly sold out at $2.5 million for 30 seconds.

I'm in the middle of a great book, Michael Pollan's Botany of Desire, which gives us an interesting take on what might cause this kind of absurd spending. We've always looked at the domestication of plants and animals as a symbol of humanity's power over other species. Pollan turns this idea on its head, showing how four species of plants have exploited different human desires to help them thrive. The four plants and the related desires are the apple (sweetness), tulip (beauty), marijuana (intoxication), and potato (control). We have to ask, who is the domesticator, and who is the domesticated? Makes me think of Superbowl advertising. (Read on ...)

The Tulip chapter describes the Tulipmania craze in Holland during 1635-1637, where prices for tulip bulbs and futures contracts on these bulbs rose to unbelievable levels. In Pollan's world, this isn't only a story of human greed and the non-wisdom of crowds, but it's also a story of how the tulip was able to take advantage of a human need. The Dutch, constrained by Calvinist morals and living in a drab, monochromatic environment, were vulnerable to the tulip's brilliant beauty. This gave tulip genes an opportunity to replicate themselves in great numbers. Tulipmania was not only good for the speculators who were able to sell and collect, but was also really good for the tulip.

My contention: Although a few advertisers may benefit from Superbowl advertising, the only sure winner is the broadcaster. Let's not kid ourselves about the real value in Superbowl advertising. The broadcasters have cashed in on marketers' need for notoriety (notice I didn't write the word "sales").

The bursting of the Tulipmania bubble started small and exploded quickly. When one seller couldn't get his price, the word spread and the market went into a rapid collapse. Ultimately, this was very good for the economy in Amsterdam. One day, in the not too distant future, it's possible that the broadcaster of the Superbowl won't be able to get its price and that market could collapse also. That might be the best thing for Superbowl advertisers.

Steve Yastrow posted this on 01/29/06.

Comments

Also when you take into account that the Superbowl marketing is a NA thing with virtually no world wide impact........

Posted by PaulH at January 30, 2006 3:19 AM

The very fact that most blogs and news sites give more coverage to the various Super Bowl adverts, half-time shows and even Super Bowl spoofs than they do the football, teams and players tells you everything you need to know about the state of the sport.

I guess it's time to redress the balance, so if the advertising bubble did burst, it might be the best thing all round...

Posted by Stewart Rogers at January 30, 2006 4:27 AM

Often, like the game itself on the big day, the performance of the ads is lackluster. The problem that I would have, as an advertiser, is the inability to actually measure with any real accuracy how many of those 134 million viewers are actually viewing my ad. Are they at the fridge? Perhaps they're in the bathroom? While a resultant sales surge after the campaign might suggest that the ad was successful, it would be hard for me to fork over that kind of cash without harder evidence. Conversely, tracking response to an online marketing campaign is much more accurate (i.e. open rates, click-through rates, web stats). The online audience is also much larger - 1 billion as opposed to 134 million.

I think that television media companies need to start getting more creative with their monetization strategy - along with the creative itself. This is something that the Internet can shed some light on for them.

Unfortunately, I'll miss the game here in Ireland. While I can get it on satellite, the 2am start here is simply too late when I haven't followed the season properly. I did it for a couple of years, and it just isn't the same watching it here. Probably like the Guinness in Ireland, it doesn't necessarily taste the same when it travels! Go Seahawks!!

To read a recent article of mine on the subject: Is the Superbowl So Super for Advertisers, go to: http://www.group-mail.com/asp/common/articles.asp?id=197

Posted by Tom O'Leary at January 30, 2006 4:49 AM

To dig up an old post, which is dumber: $100 for the Million Dollar Homepage which was really about PR for Mr. Tew or $2.5m for 30 seconds in front of 134 million of the world's richest consumers?

Posted by Mark J Foscoe at January 30, 2006 4:56 AM

Depends on the ROI I suppose Mark. Probably different answers for different participants. I've heard several advertisers recently report that their ROI on The Million Dollar Homepage was excellent - and I'm sure that there will be some advertisers paying the big bucks for the Superbowl that will have good ROI too. Others won't - in both cases.

I would venture that the majority of Superbowl viewers around the world aren't the richest though Mark. There will be many beer-guzzling college kids with more debt than purchase power making up a large percentage of that audience.

Posted by Tom O'Leary at January 30, 2006 8:44 AM

Somehow I have $100 on le Steelcurtain [4 pt fave today] even though my heart is with the Emerald City ...

ROI on the Superbowl seems to be the main deal - love the new ads every time and the PARTY USA worldwide atmosphere ...

Posted by Sean at January 30, 2006 10:29 AM

I guess you will say I must wake up to the real world but there is something almost obscene about all these figures while children continue to die in Africa at a frightening speed.

2.5 million dollars in 30 seconds â€“ Iâ€™m gobsmacked - in 30 seconds three or four more children will have died for the sake of a few dollars. That is the scale of this thing. Am I really part of a Christian world?

Sorry to be a party pooper but it is the same over here with my first sporting love soccer. The money paid to footballers is also obscene

Maybe I am feeling this way cos it is a Monday :-)

Posted by Trevor Gay at January 30, 2006 11:46 AM

Hmmm....and one of the most sought after tulips (for its "streaked" brilliant colors)was actually diseased (hence the difference.) Any parallel there with modern advertising and our consumer culture?

As for the $$ spent on Super Bowl ads (which often play to an empty room as the viewers get up to take a bio break or get another helping of snacks) - that's way, way out of whack both in terms of effective use of marketing dollars as well as our values. (I share some of Trevor's "crankiness" this Monday a.m.)

Posted by Mary Schmidt at January 30, 2006 12:00 PM

Take heart Trevor - I believe in our lifetime the African dictators' trend to take massive worldwide aid and put much of it in their own accounts - plus tribal genocide tendency [of their own brothers/siters] - shall cease ... appreciate the simple view of it though.

Now the USA must cutoff the $325M per year in aid to "Palestinians" since radical terror "leadership" of Hamas has taken over.

Posted by Sean at January 30, 2006 12:13 PM

Trevor - sorry to be controversial, my friend, especially as I appreciate you're feeling cranky but you ask, "Am I really part of a Christian world?" No, you're not. 1) You're part of a multi-faith world where people are (or should be) free to participate or not in the religion of their choice. 2) You don't have to be Christian to feel sorrow for the plight of Africa. As an atheist, I share your concerns.

Like we talk about ROI for the advertising spend, it really is about time that major G7 governments held recipients accountable for the ROI on aid. Giving a poor country $x million with no accountability for spending it properly smacks of conscience money pure and simple and just invites trouble. I'm far more concerned that my tax dollar (well, tax Â£ - I'm British) is given to aid recipients who can prove they use it properly than I am about how private enterprise chooses to spend on advertising - which is money that goes to pay the TV people, the ad-makers, the sponsorship people and then largely gets recycled through the economy anyway.

Posted by Mark J Foscoe at January 30, 2006 12:36 PM

I would have a hell of a lot more respect for any company who publically said "we thought about the super bowl but decided to put the money to a good cause" - That act if properly and sensitively communicated would probable create more brand awareness and custom than a football game. It would take guts to do and would probably be a one off stunt - has this happened at all?

Posted by PaulH at January 30, 2006 5:00 PM

Fair points Sean and Mark - I appreciate we live in a 'multi faith' and 'no faith' world and yes my point is simple - you would expect nothing less from me I'm sure :-)

Despite the wrongs of dictators and despite economic arguments about cost effectiveness of investment in Africa it still feels plain wrong to me. but then it is still Monday :-)

Posted by Trevor Gay at January 30, 2006 5:05 PM

By the way, Mary is right ... the streaked tulips which appeared infrequently were known as "broken" tulips. They were prized. In reality, it is a virus that caused them to break. The virus also caused them to have smaller, less fertile, bulbs, so they were harder to propagate and rarer, which also raised their value.

Posted by Steve Yastrow at January 30, 2006 7:53 PM

Thanks for all of the great comments. At the heart of my sceptism is the belief (based on empirical observation over the years) that virtually all decisions to advertise on the Super Bowl are made through weak decision making processes. Very few of them really know if it will work, but the alchemy of groupthink in the conference room combined with the desire to make one's product famous lead to horrific wastes of capital.

Posted by Steve Yastrow at January 30, 2006 7:56 PM