Serena Williams narrates the moving spot that depicts woman after woman, girl after girl, in sporting situations. Williams lists the words so often used to describe women athletes: nuts, delusional, dramatic, etc.

Late in the spot, Williams comes to the word crazy, and rather than fight it, the dialog embraces it. Nike, through Williams and a superbly-edited commercial appropriate (and rightly so) the term “crazy”. Yes, women athletes are crazy…in a good way.

The spot ends with the lines, “So if they wanna call you crazy, fine. Show them what crazy can do.”

Homerun. Touchdown. Goal. Slam dunk. Nike “Just Do It” rides again.

Nike has strayed here and there, and many question the strategy of the Colin Kaepernick ad of last year, but with Dream Crazy they have returned to the roots that helped build a superbrand.

Two Guyz Brian said of the spot, “It’s why I got into advertising in the first place, spots like this. I love the story it tells. I love the emotion it evokes. And I love the message it conveys. It makes me want to ‘just do it’, and it makes me want to buy something Nike right now.”

And creating a spot that is about the power of women and female athletes that MOST guys will like is not an easy feat.

The 2 Guyz On Marketing teach that emotion is a much more powerful communications tool than logic the vast majority of the time. Done properly, emotional appeals get into your psyche and your soul. They touch you in ways you were not expecting, and not prepared for. And that makes them both powerful and memorable.

A bit crazy? Brilliantly crazy.

As an owner, operator, supervisor, marketing executive, manager or employee, can your customers, clients or users tell the difference between your product or service and your competition?  

Do you have strategic and significant difference? A U.S.P., unique selling proposition?

Every brand should have a story to tell whether they are in the Super Bowl or not.

Are you telling the right story? Is your brand and story reaching the right people, your customers, and your potential purchasers?

Here are the insights from The 2 Guyz On Marketing.

1. Gladys Knight hit it out of the park with her rendition of the National Anthem.
2. Pepsi didn’t get their money’s worth with the halftime show of Maroon 5, Travis Scott and Big Boi.
3. One of our favorite spots was for Amazon. They used the celebrities of Mark and Scott Kelly and Harrison Ford and how Alexa can misunderstand.
4. Mint Mobile hit the mother lode in bad taste with “Chunky Milk.” When the 2 Guyz presented the Mint Mobile spot to a university class, none of the students liked the spot and many cringed.
5. CBS promoted almost all of their shows and programming. The number one advertiser by number of TV spots and promotion: CBS who brought to all of us Super Bowl LIII.
6. The 2 Guyz liked the message for Bumble. Giving women the right to make the first move, but the spot with Sabrina Williams wasn’t impactful enough.
7. While there were fewer cars advertised this year in the Super Bowl, the number one brand promoted: Mercedes Benz. Super Bowl Liii was televised from Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, and its signage was constantly seen.
8. Looking at U.S.P.’s or unique selling propositions, it was Bud Light who said Coors Light and Miller Light use corn syrup in their brewing.  Bud Light doesn’t use corn syrup. While done in the “dilly dilly” style, it is possibly the most hard hitting beer ad in years.
9. Another U.S.P. of note: Some 33.3% of their cars will be electrified by 2025. Impressive.
10. As predicted by The 2 Guyz, Persil rated in the bottom five of all advertisers.
11. Stella Artois used celebrities Jeff Bridges and Jessica Parker in character from famous movies and hit shows. One mispronounced Stella Artois. Has Stella been promoting all of these years and yet potential beer purchasers do not know how to say “Stella Artois?”  

The 2 Guyz teach and consult that the right Marketing belief or practice is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the minds of each individual employee in trying to satisfy the consumer and in the advertising of the company.  

As Management guru Peter F. Drucker once said: “The aim of Marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him (her/it) and sells itself.  This is one of the reasons the Nine P’s of marketing were created. “People” or targeting was somewhat forgotten in the traditional 4 P’s of the Marketing Mix, but is a major, significant part of the Nine P’s of Marketing.

,TV spots cost the most in history, up to $5.3M per :30 and that did not include production, agency fees or creative.

As for ads, we definitely saw a few trends. Here’s a rundown of some of the things we learned from this year’s Superbowl of Advertising.

• Trying to be cool doesn’t work. Being cool isn’t something you do, it’s something you are. We ask every year, why not feature the product.? Just putting a rapper in an ad doesn’t mean you’ll be successful. That was Pepsi’s philosophy with Steve Carell not being funny with Lil Jon and Cardi B.
• Downers don’t play. If you don’t get our attention, and don’t keep it, you lose. Think Turbo Tax, Turkish Air, and ADT. The advertisers need to think of the home TV environment and the amount of drinking, especially on east coast.
• Funny plays well when there is a message. Bud Light actually had a message about ingredients. It was about what their competitors are putting into beer., Who knew corn syrup was being used? Alexa made fun of themselves, in a good way. Hyundai hooked us with the elevator spot.
• If we don’t know who you are, tell us, and tell us what you do, otherwise, we don’t care. Bumble, Mint Mobile, and Persil are guilty as charged.
• Preach to the choir. NFL killed it with their 100-year kickoff promotion. Nicely done. Brought out the personalities of the stars.
• Tugging at heart strings or strong advocacy messages resonated. Verizon, Microsoft, Google, and the Washington Post all had winners with smart ads.
• Changing perceptions is difficult, but possible. Stella Artois and KIA both had memorable ads that asked us to see things in a new light. Or as Londre says, has Stella spent so much and knew people didn’t know how to pronounce it.  It’s beer drinkers who have to order.
• Boring is bad. Wix’s popular Karli Kloss ads played like they were old and stale on the big Superbowl stage.

Superbowl advertising is a time to be special, to make a big impression. It’s sad to see wasting the chance for a big audience and a big message.  Kudos to those who succeeded. Back to the drawing room for those who didn’t.

Want to see Ad Meter‘s full rundown of the best and worst? Click here.

Sometimes it’s pure imagination. Better put, creativity is imagination and originality.

So what do you do when you a producing the Academy Awards one year after their biggest flub…ever? Get creative.

While your company may not have ever had a big a mistake as last year’s announcement of the wrong movie for best picture, you can’t really blame Faye Dunnaway or Warren Beatty.  It was really the accounting firm of PwC.  They gave the stars the wrong envelope.

How do you address it, overcome the awkwardenss? Want a bigger rating, share and buzz for the Oscar’s this weekend. Think “Promotion,” one of the nine P’s of marketing?

Here’s what ABC and the producers dreamed up.

Easy, they are bring back Dunaway and Beatty!

Confirmed. After last year’s best picture mix-up by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, they will again present the final award this Sunday March 4th on ABC.

First reported by TMZ, the “Bonnie and Clyde” actors have already rehearsed at the Dolby Theater for this year’s Academy Awards.

What you are not hearing is that after the best picture fiasco of last year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences retained the services of accounting firm PwC for the 90th ceremony. Again.

PwC doesn’t like that association of the mistake, for sure.  They are in the business of accuracy.

The same PwC representatives will not be back. PwC will be on their toes being sure of everything and that everything goes right.

Pass the envelope, please!

(Photo courtesy Oscar.org)

Comcast/NBCUniversal has announced that it will cut TV spots in primetime by 20% across all of their TV networks.

NBC, Telemundo, USA, MSNBC and E! are vowing to cut the number of ads or TV spots by 20% in their primetime programing.

Not now in February or March, but in six months. Hmm.

Is it too much clutter?  As much as 11 minutes an hour of advertising by advertisers. Six and a half minutes for 30 minutes, and those minutes and seconds doesn’t include the station promos and bumpers.

Is it Hulu?

Is it Netflix?

Is it because more people are binge watching better programs?

Is it because of zipping and zapping?

It is because all the networks have added too many TV spots and promos and lost viewership?

Nielsen research says 400K ads had been added to the TV networks over the past five years. Go back ten years and it’s a ton more.

The 2 Guyz would say it is all of those reasons.

Now what about all of the spots in all of the programing other than primetime?

Ever think there were too many spots in the Super Bowl on NBC? There were 68, and that didn’t include a million spots for NBC programing.

Could lack of supply increase demand…and pricing?

Time will tell.

A million reasons not to continuing to watch the Grammys this week. I know a friend who posted she watched 30 minutes, zipped through the show and found only 20 minutes of good material.

Add that to the approximate 24% drop in viewership in key demographics and the characteristics under “People” (of the 9 P’s of Marketing).

The Grammys were something you could miss.

It wasn’t a good show, or a “product,” (also under the 9P’s of Marketing).

While people watched the 60th Annual Grammy Awards, the advertisers can’t be happy, it was the least-watched Grammys in nine years.

The 2 Guyz believe it was too much U2. Too much Sting. Not enough Lorde. Oh, she wasn’t asked. An industry protesting objectification of women…with seemingly countless performances objectifying women.

James Corbin was OK, but way too much promotion of CBS programming too.

Really the Grammys show was something to miss. Oh, much of the audience did. And the advertisers paid for it.

Yes, the Super Bowl LII is next Sunday…

As college instructors and bloggers, we want to help! The 2 Guyz want you to look smart while you are watching the Super Bowl with friends.

These are some great questions and answers to look as smooth as you can be while watching the Super Bowl TV spots on February 4th on NBC.

• “Really, advertising is not an art form. It’s an expensive, business tool.”
• “Is that spot or ad believable?”
• “Was that clear? Or “Was that a clear execution of their strategy to sell product or services?”
• “Did that give any information to us, the audience? Or say “the intended target audience?”
• “Does that TV spot (better to say spot than an ad) deliver the intended message?”
• To me, meaning you the reader of this blog or viewer, “Is the advertiser trying to shock us?  Are they really selling any product?”
• “Looks like they are generating some awareness of their brand, but are they selling any product?”
• “I wonder who their competition is?”
• “Creative advertising is really advertising that creates sales.”
• “Advertising is only one of eight tools under “Promotion” with the 9P’s of Marketing.” Remember the advertising could have put $5 Million dollars for each spot into more sales people. Better customer service. Could have dropped prices? More store events.
• To whom should they be targeting and promoting? The Super Bowl is more men than women (55% men to 45% women), but it’s a huge audience. What percentage of the audience would be interested in buying that product? Under “People/”Targeting, target market, audience with media falls here.
• Every ad contains two things:
  • What you want to say
  • How you want to say it.
• Another great question is, “What are they really trying to say (or sell)?”
• And finally, from the business point of view when you see a bad spot, “What’s the opportunity cost of that? Probably could have found a more effective way to spend $5.5.”

Enjoy the game…and the spots!

Over the years we hadn’t seen too many Sonic® TV spots, as Sonic was a Midwest chain, and while expanding, didn’t get to California until recently.

Sonic, “America’s Drive In,” has also adopted a new media strategy. They began advertising across the country, even in states they didn’t have drive-ins. They currently have more than 3,500 company and franchised locations around the country, but are only in 45 states.

We remember that in 2012 Sonic went back to the two advertising guys for Sonic after their CEO J. Clifford Hudson said their try at other new ideas and advertising executions “did not have the flexibility of moving across a variety of dayparts and messages.”

Sonic tried different executions for TV creative. They didn’t move the needle. Potential customers for Sonic didn’t see the spots in the sense that they were airing but didn’t get customers and fast food enthusiasts to go to Sonic.

For the 2 Guyz On Marketing it’s about more than generating awareness. It’s about making the cash register ring.

The TV approach and creative of their new campaign was the problem, Hudson told investors, that the length of time it took for one new commercial “to be even recognized as a Sonic promotion” was way too long. The 2 Guyz On Marketing would translate that into “Lack of sales. In retail, the goal is to make the cash register ring. When that doesn’t happen, people, and agencies, lose jobs.

So the 2 Sonic advertising guys are back. What is Sonic’s marketing objective? With a lot of experience in fast food and restaurant marketing, the 2 Guyz On Marketing (Larry and Brian) can pretty confidently say that is it to maintain or increase positive same-store sales growth. They advertise to support the stores and the brand, and know they are growing, so they are “softening the beaches” in the newer states.

We see the TV more. And they vary executions, frequently. They raise awareness. And they do plenty of promotions, about food and their food products.

The spots are interesting to us since they show product, and they make promotions work and generate store traffic.

Sonic wants brand recognition and wants a way to deliver copy points quickly and ultimately get store traffic and sales. That is what their 2 Sonic advertising guys do.

(Note: Sonic is a registered trademark of SONIC AMERICA’S DRIVE-IN BRAND PROPERTIES LLC)

A TV spot comes on, with a Santa whacking a clever on some products. I notices, though not so much as to catch the gist of it…until the end. An elf enters the workshop, delivers a line, and Santa, mistaking something, exclaims, “Sh*t,” yes, that word.

Wait, what? Santa swearing? Really? It’s Christmas and holiday time. Double, “Really.”

I almost didn’t believe my eyes, or ears, but a quick HDR rewind, and yup, that’s what I saw and heard. I even asked the wife in to watch it to make sure what I thought was the S-bomb, was, in fact, an S-Bomb. In a GameStop® commercial.

See for yourself. https://www.ispot.tv/ad/wE7m/gamestop-game-days-sale-half

This is an interesting topic for the 2 Guyz On Marketing for a few reasons. First, cuss words in the classroom. Cuss words in advertising? Next, cuss words on television. And finally, are cuss words smart marketing and promotion?

On the first point. As long as we have been in marketing (30+ years), there has been an unwritten rule: no swearing. Come close, tap dance on the edge, sure, but don’t cross the line. Sex and innuendo, sure. But swearing? Nope. It does happen all the time in making spots and advertising, not in them.

On the second point. Television is considered to be “public airwaves.” The FCC does prohibit obscene, indecent, and profane language and material. The problem arises when you try to define what is obscene, indecent, and profane.

Back in 1972, George Carlin gave us his classic “7 Words You Can Never Say On Television”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyBH5oNQOS0 If you have not seen it, it is arguably one of the best comedy routines of all time. But the concept stuck, and those seven words are not uttered on broadcast television.

Those terms, obscene, indecent, and profane (profanity), are hard to define. Even the U.S. Supreme Court has had trouble with it. So it comes down to interpretation, and community standards.

Pay TV is different. HBO, Showtime, and the like, it’s no problem. Even cable networks get away with a lot.

It’s common practice on Howard Stern’s show.

But thanks again to the Internet, porn, cussing, violence, and the like are just a click away. And language in the country has definitely turned, well, rougher, in the past 20 years.

We did a brief poll, and found that the average millennial doesn’t care too much about cussing and swearing. And while not a statistically significant sample, those he spoke to said it’s a non-issue.

Baby boomers? Split. Some didn’t like it. Some didn’t care.

As a writer, Brian uses colorful language, but rarely, and only for emphasis and effect. He’s been known to tell students, “A well placed f-bomb can be a powerful thing!”

2 Guy Londre does not allow it in the classroom. “It’s not appropriate.”

But the last issue is the one we are concerned with. Marketing. Is cussing, swearing, and profanity good for marketing and in advertising?

Our answer is, probably not, at least most of the time. The 2 Guyz don’t feel they should be used in Christmas spots.   Oh, holiday spots.

Most often it can be “borrowed interest.” This is the concept of taking something else other than the product to get interest. Think pop song jingles, girls in bathing suits, or gratuitous puppies and kittens. Sure, they all get attention, buy does it ultimately connect with the product and brand being advertised? Usually not.

Also, we have to look at the context. Santa is bashing the products in the commercial, literally hacking them into pieces. Not the best marketing imagery. Seems kind of dumb smashing the products you are selling. Not replacing them.

One counterpoint is the target audience. The 18-34 male is a prime prospect for gaming products. And chances are, 99.99% of them have heard, used, and are pretty immune to language. But what about the little brothers and sisters watching? Or grandma who is visiting for the holidays.

In the case of the 2 Guys On Marketing, we’re less concerned with being the language police. That’s for others. Instead, we’re looking out for the interest of marketers. Making the cash register ring.

2 Guyz Brian’s test for this is, did the use of the device, in this word language, propel the viewer closer to purchasing. And in this case, we think there was, possibly or probably, a better holiday commercial script that got passed over for this one.

One additional thought: Since the use of cuss words are more pervasive in public conversation how soon will one appear in the Super Bowl. Not on the field, but in a TV spot. We hope not soon.

(NOTE:  GameStop® is a registered trademark of  GameStop. All rights reserved.)

Various news sources put the NFL ratings decline at about 5-6% this year, which is a pretty big deal. Kneeling protests? Sure, they’ve added to it. So has politics in general. So has baseball.

Fox chief executive officer James Murdoch said he believes ratings are down because of a “overproliferation” of football. In other words, we’ve got Thursday night football, college football all Saturday, plus pro football all day Sunday, and finally Sunday night.

The 2 Guyz On Marketing thinks there may be several other reasons for a lack of sales for Papa Johns.

• Too much advertising and promotion, in and around the game.
  Called clutter.
• Fewer “people,” under the nine P’s of Marketing are watching NFL games. Ratings are down. Advertising and media pros are commenting too much football, in too many places. Oversaturation.
• Fewer people means advertising has less impact
• Papa John’s product:
  – One journalist described their product’s as “cardboardy pizza topped with meat-adjacent salt-discs”
  – A former manager said about the pizza sauce: “the red sauce is candied….it’s full of sugar.”;
• One pizza and its toppings were described as “It’s just grease on top of grease.”
• Advertising fatigue
• New product introductions by competitors
• Competitive marketing strategies
• Competitive promotion
• Seasonality
• Competitor’s products
• Price discounting doesn’t always increase sales.

NFL’s major TV promotional contracts will come up in four or five years. The major advertisers and partners, another of the nine P’s of Marketing, spend a whopping $7.3 billion a year on their NFL deals.

What to do? Well, never before has the need for ROI been so prevalent in advertising. 2 Guyz Brian Hemsworth often says in class, “People who advertise in the same place for a long time do it because it works, not because it doesn’t. When it doesn’t work, change it.”

By the way on Wall Street, Papa John’s share price fell 11+% on the same day Papa John’s blamed the NFL.