For marketers and PR pros, what happens off the field can be the most anticipated element of the Super Bowl, reflected in ad spots and game-day efforts. This year—amid Cards Against Humanity’s fake Super Bowl ad stunt and a flurry of tweets from organizations’ social media teams hoping to attract consumers’ attention during the big game—several ads took on a more somber tone.
Many organizations—including Airbnb, Budweiser and Coca-Cola—ran spots dealing with political issues such as immigration, but an ad by 84 Lumber upset efforts by several large brands to become the focus of on- and offline buzz.
The lumber company crafted a video called, “The Journey Begins,” which depicts a Mexican woman and her daughter traveling to the United States. Upon their arrival, they’re met with a border wall—at least, in the original video.
Fox rejected the ad for its controversial elements, and the 84 Lumber replaced it with a shorter video that ended with the message, “See the conclusion at Journey84.com.”
The ad became one of the most talked-about Super Bowl spots, and the traffic from viewers crashed the company’s website. The full ad—posted on the company’s YouTube channel—has more than 2.8 million views at time of publication, and more than 1.2 million views on its Facebook post:
[Calling all executive communications directors and VPs: Join us at Facebook HQ for the Facebook Leadership Communications Summit!]
It’s becoming harder for PR and marketing pros to avoid addressing controversial social or political issues, whether in an official ad or from the voice of the organization’s leader.
Rob Shapiro, chief client officer at Brunner—the agency that created the ad—told The Washington Post:
Ignoring the border wall and the conversation around immigration that’s taking place in the media and at every kitchen table in America just didn’t seem right. If everyone else is trying to avoid controversy, isn’t that the time when brands should take a stand for what they believe in?
Brand managers might even find themselves pushed to participate in the conversation as the political climate becomes increasingly divisive.
Melissa D. Dodd, assistant professor of advertising and PR at the Nicholson School of Communication at the University of Central Florida, wrote in a 2015 Forbes article:
In a study we ran using Qualtrics, we found that Americans are 8.1% more likely to purchase from a company that shares their opinions and are 8.4% less likely to purchase from a company that doesn’t. In other words, it’s no longer just about whether a person likes the product or service, it’s about whether they like the company’s stance on certain pertinent issues.
In fact, research by the Global Strategy Group indicates that 56% of Americans now believe corporations should engage in dialogue surrounding controversial social-political issues.
If you are going to take a stand, however, don’t expect smooth sailing.
Talkwalker reported that Anheuser Busch received almost 95,000 social media mentions for its controversial Budweiser ad titled, “Born the Hard Way.”
The video tells the struggle of the beer company’s German-born founder, Adolphus Busch, as he immigrated to the U.S. Though it received the most online mentions during the Super Bowl, the company was also the target of the #BoycottBudweiser hashtag, which was used roughly 8,000 times during the same period.
from PR Daily News Feed http://ift.tt/2kdCSwY
No comments:
Post a Comment