The Homa Files

Excerpted from the Wall Street Journal “PepsiCo Seeks to Raise Stakes on Super Bowl Ads” September 24, 2008

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When it comes to pumping out Super Bowl ads that score well with viewers, Anheuser-Busch is widely acknowledged to be the master. This year, PepsiCo has a new tactic to steal some of the brewer’s limelight.

The snack-and-beverage company is offering $1 million to anyone who can create a Super Bowl commercial for its Doritos tortilla chip brand that trumps all other ads in viewer rankings during the gridiron matchup…

By dangling a $1 million prize, it hopes to dominate the months of pregame buzz, which many public-relations and ad executives say is far more valuable than winning the myriad Super Bowl ad polls.

This has become a critical way to help offset the high costs of advertising during the Super Bowl. Ad time for this season’s game is selling for about $3 million for 30 seconds, up about 10% from last season.

To top the polls, PepsiCo’s consumer-generated ad would have to outperform the King of Beers, which has won the top spot for the past 10 years in a row, thanks in part to a highly detailed pregame ritual. Its formula involves multiple ad shoots and pregame focus groups around the country to measure viewers’ minute-by-minute reactions to its spots…

Doritos’ marketers are trying to revive the excitement they created at the Super Bowl two seasons ago with a contest inviting consumers to submit their own 30-second ads for the famous triangular chip. It marked the first time marketers used consumer-generated ads at the big game…The contest generated $36 million in free publicity for Doritos before and after the game…

Now, Doritos’ marketers face the challenge of finding an ad that will stand out at a time when consumer-generated advertising is no longer a hot trend.

“The newness that made it special in 2007 is gone — now it’s just another ad,” says Dave Balter, chief executive of BzzAgent, a word-of-mouth media company based in Boston. “They are trying to manufacture buzz”…

Edit by SAC

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Full article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122221123298169049.html

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This entry was posted on October 6, 2008 at 7:00 am and is filed under Mktg - Promotion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.