Get in the Game Early with "Effective Frequency"

The Super Bowl is the nation's day for hoopla and hype. Indeed, Google Search Trends reveals that the hype begins to pick up about two to three weeks before the game.

This is one reason so many Super Bowl advertisers release "teaser commercials" or even game-day commercials during the three weeks just prior to the game.

In advertising, as in any aspect of business, the question always turns to maximizing the investment. Prices have reached the $4 million dollar range for 30-second commercials. This is not to mention production costs for the commercials and related promotional activities.

To maximize this investment, advertisers recognize the notion of "effective frequency." Learning increases with repetition. In advertising, as with any aspect of behavior, repeated exposures are needed for a commercial's message to be fully appreciated.  One exposure to a commercial is generally not enough.

So, by participating in the anticipatory hype, many Super Bowl advertisers are taking advantage of the basic psychology of learning theory. The teaser commercials or early release of game-day commercials place their selling ideas further along on the learning curve with a greater opportunity for impact in the marketplace.

Should advertisers hold off to debut commercials during the big game? Or, should advertisers participate in the pre-game hype with it's social media multiplier?  Learning theory tells us to get in the game early.

For more on the Psychology of Advertising, please see Advertising and the Arc of History.

Copyright © 2013 by John Eighmey. All Rights Reserved.

Super Sunday Advertising Explained

Everyday advertising often follows a conventional "learning theory" approach. Media audiences are seen as waiting to be "informed" by a message argument which may then reinforce or even increase positive beliefs about the advertised brand. This approach can also be seen as "lookalike" advertising.

On the other hand, Super Sunday is our national day of hoopla and hype. As such, this day calls for a different advertising theory, one known to scholars as "attitude toward the ad."

In this view, advertising message content is designed purely for enjoyment. The theory "posits" that if people really like the advertising, they will really like the brand.

Yes, it's vaguely Pavlovian.

Looking ahead to this weekend, VW has cleverly keyed us in to both the spirit of the day and the proper "Theory of Advertising" with a teaser commercial they began airing on January 25th.

The VW commercial features Jimmy Cliff, the legendary reggae musician, performing a specially prepared version of the Partridge Family song "Come On Get Happy." He joyfully sings the song and beckons troubled people from well-known viral videos of the past to join him on a verdant hillside for some much needed attitude adjustment. The general similarity of this scenario to the classic Coca-Cola commercial, "I want to teach the world to sing," is worth noting.

This spot is highly entertaining. Even more, it serves up a gleeful antidote for the general attitude of negativism that has been widely promulgated lately.

Hat's off to VW for this cultural "Attitude Adjustment."

  Copyright © 2013 by John Eighmey. All Rights Reserved.

How High Is Up for Super Bowl Commercials?

The Super Bowl is our nation's annual day of coming together with a shared interest. It could be the football game. But often, and especially in connection with exuberant parties of friends, the interest turns to the television commercials.

Which commercial is best? Which one made everyone laugh? Which one gave us the warmest tug? Which one gave us a new idea of what advertising can be?

We don't have a BCS committee or a national tourney for advertising. However, thanks to USA Today, we do have that newspaper's annual Ad Meter Survey to provide a metric for the commercials which garnered greatest favor.

Since 1989, USA Today has been gathering samples of Super Bowl viewers to use an "Ad Meter" device to track their "liking" for each commercial. The meter dials range from a high of 10 on downward.

Here is a figure showing the ratings for the top ten commercials since 2002.

Looking to the left-hand side of the the figure, you can see that through 2004 the best commercial topped out at 9 or slightly above. This was true in the earlier years as well.

Then, in 2005, there was a noticeable drop in the top ten ratings. Since 2004 no commercial has passed the 9-point level.

Indeed, the overall trend suggests a curious period of doldrums from which Super Bowl commercials appear to be emerging in 2012.

There are many possible explanations. One is the national controversy triggered by the "Wardrobe Malfunction" during the 2004  half-time show. An understandable aspect of risk aversion may have ensued.

In any event, the Super Bowl advertising question for 2013 is, "How high is up?" Will this be the first year in almost a decade in which the top commercial surpasses the 9-point level?

Copyright © 2013 by John Eighmey. All Rights Reserved.

The Super Bowl as an Attention Structure

Roman numerals aside (XLVII in 2013), the costs of Super Bowl advertising keep heading skyward.

For 2013, CBS is said to be garnering up to $3.8 million for 30-second spots. It has been reported that almost all of the time slots were sold by early this fall.

This may seem like a lot for a little, but it is increasingly difficult to find advertising venues to reach substantial proportions of the US population at any one point in time. All the cable channels, countless video channels, and the plethora of other new electronic media, challenge the capacity of advertisers to develop media plans with wide reach to the nation.

Through all the changes in media and popular culture, the Super Bowl has emerged as the nation's most substantial annual moment of coming together via mass media. Each of the last two Super Bowls brought in about 111 million viewers (of a total US population of 315 million). These two Super Bowls are now among the record holders for largest television audiences.

Therein lies the basis for premium pricing.

For perspective, according to the TVB, in 2012 primetime television shows brought in audiences averaging about 4.5 million viewers. The peak year for primetime programming was 1980 with an average primetime audience of about 15 million.

Accordingly, there has been a two-thirds decline for primetime television audiences over the past 30 years. This underscores the impact of the Internet, broadband communication, and social media.

Now, in 2012, the average cost of a 30-second primetime spot was about $112,000. This delivers a CPM (cost-per-thousand) of about 24 dollars. With an audience of 111 million, and a per unit cost of $3.8 million, a 30-second commercial on the 2013 Super Bowl will deliver a CPM of about 34 dollars.

So, this year's Super Bowl will bring in a 10-dollar CPM premium compared with primetime television. But, with an effective message strategy and design, the advertising investment will be worth it.

The benefits include instantaneous reach to the largest and most diverse annual audience and the opportunity to place the advertised brands in the midst of the nation's annual moment of hype and hoopla.

Attention is the most valuable commodity in the economy, and the Super Bowl is easily the most valuable attention structure.

                   Copyright © 2012 by John Eighmey. All Rights Reserved.

Antidote for Commercialization

Here's one "antidote for commercialization" in the season of plenty of it.

Telling the story by means of snowpersons makes it all the more charming and evokative. Emotions, feelings, and cognitive responses can often be heightened by unexpected or unconventional approaches.

This commercial was made by Adam & Eve/DDB in London for John Lewis, the UK's storied department store chain (since 1864).

For more on the psychology of advertising, see Diversity and Communication Power.

                  Copyright © 2012 by John Eighmey. All Rights Reserved.

Lessons in Gangnam Style

Gangnam Style has captured imaginations around world. Go to the videos on YouTube if you have yet to experience this phenomenon.

The performance by Psy and his entourage exemplifies both what and why people "seek and share" in social media.

Now, Gangnam Style as become a meme, with new videos by Psy and others appearing on a regular basis. They present a classic case study in viral diffusion patterns as shown in these results for a Google Trends search for the term Gangnam Style.

Notice the ascending diffusion pattern composed of a sequence of layered Pareto distributions. The Pareto distribution is the "unit form" for the diffusion of an idea placed on the Web at one point it time.

In the graph, you can see how the intermittent infusion of new sources adds to the accumulation of interest over time. It will be interesting to watch how this story continues to unfold.

Here's an updated chart as of November 22, 2012. As of this date, there have been 1.1 billion visitors to Psy's YouTube channel, where the Gangnam Style video has been viewed over 800 million times.

You can see the continuing introduction of new sources of interest. These consist of new video posts on Psy's YouTube channel as well as posts made on other highly visible websites. You can also observe a cyclical character of peaks and valleys within the overall pattern that seem to accord with weekly patterns in search behavior.

On November 7, Psy explained how his Gangnam Style video become viral in his remarks at Oxford Union.

Can Psy's success be attained by others? Yes, to a degree, but such levels of success cannot necessarily be "manufactured." Audiences will gravitate to original expression, not corporate replication.

On December 17, nearly a half year after its first release, the lastest search on Google Trends shows the Gangnam Style video continues to garner worldwide interest. 

This latest graph shows daily interest levels holding within 80 percent of the peak reached about three months after the video's release.

For more perspective on psychological theory and the development of persuasive advertising, please see Strategic Power of the Theory of Planned Behavior.

                Copyright © 2012 by John Eighmey. All Rights Reserved.

The "Jobsian Perspective"

Today Apple posted this video capturing Steve Job's vision.

The secret of Steve Jobs is to inform an insistent focus on what technology can be with human insights grounded in arts, history and social sciences.

The "fundamentals" of business success are not grounded in economic analysis, rather they reside in humanizing concepts and values.

For more on the psychology of advertising, please see Diversity and Communication Power.

                Copyright © 2012 by John Eighmey. All Rights Reserved.