Advertising lessons from the 2018 Super Bowl

Whether you're in big business or small, there are always lessons that can be learnt from observing other marketing campaigns, and the Super Bowl is where agencies often produce some of their best work. In this post we'll look at some of the more notable campaigns from the Super Bowl 2018 and show what made them great.

Tourism Australia:

Discussed widely in Australia, this campaign teased audiences with the prospect of another Crocodile Dundee movie in the lead up to the Super Bowl, which was revealed on game day to be a tourism ad.

Tourism Australia successfully leveraged G’Day USA, an "Australia’s premier public and economic diplomacy program in the United States" and is primarily comprised of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Austrade and Tourism Australia, among others to bring a stable of Australian celebrity talent to bear on this campaign.

The lesson here is the clever and creative bait and switch used to gain attention and highlight the benefits of a holiday to Australia. While the estimated $32 million dollar budget for this campaign is beyond most businesses, the approach can be scaled down to businesses and budgets of all sizes.

Tide:

One of the more popular ads of the Super Bowl 2018 game day, Tide have used an increasingly popular technique that is part ambush and part guerrilla marketing. Namely to turn your competitor's marketing, direct or otherwise, on its head and have them sell your products for you.

While not advertised at the Super Bowl, Responsibly, a new and clever UK beer brand took the same approach in 2017 with their naming and marketing.

Doritos & Mountain Dew:

Marketing partnerships aren't new, but when done well as was the case with Doritos Fire vs Mountain Dew's Ice campaign, the results can engage new customers with a cross-sell while also allowing for a larger budget to reach more of your shared audience. Finding complementary partner brands can be difficult and should always add value in some form to your existing customer's, while you add value to your partner’s customers.

These are just a few of the great campaigns from this year's Super Bowl. If you'd like to find out how your business could use techniques like these or others, please get in touch, we'd love to chat.