I’m loving the Superbowl campaign that the Miller High Life brand is running during the game. The spots are all 1 second long. And with the cost of a SB ad running $3MM, this may be the way to go.
The beauty of this campaign, for me, though, is that Miller isn’t even buying a true SuperBowl ad from NBC. They are buying a bunch of 1 second ads on the top 25 NBC affiliates for the ‘local’ rates during the SuperBowl. So while Anheuser-Busch is spending around $18MM for their ‘true’ Superbowl ads, Miller isn’t spending anywhere near that.
Miller is also getting a good buzz on (pun somewhat intended). People are talking about it. (Over 3,000 blog posts about it according to Technorati).
It’s a great campaign, and I love the way they marketed ‘around’ AB, got some word of mouth going on, and are spending less than their competition. There’s also a Youtube channel and a Facebook page, but both of these probably need a little more PR from Miller, as the traffic doesn’t seem to be that high.
I recently had a startup come into the office saying that they are going to raise all kinds of money, and that they want their ad to be in the Superbowl in 2010. They actually have what seems to be a solid, competitive product, in a growing industry. They may just make it. I tried to convince them that the $3 million dollars they were going to spend on 30 seconds in the SuperBowl would be much better spent on creating a true interactive marketing plan using search, email, viral, social media. For that much money, you can create an amazing campaign that will truly drive the business, be trackable, and drill down to a true ROI on their investment. Oh well, they have their sights set on the big game, with a one-shot campaign. I guess I’ll wait and see if they can raise the $$ they are looking for. Maybe the VCs will get them to see reality.
The greatest campaign I’ve ever heard of which hardly cost the advertiser anything, killed the competition and totally drove the business: New pizza shop in Australia had a very limited budget, so what did they do. They ran a series of inexpensive radio ads, asking listeners to rip out all of the pizzeria ads in the yellow pages, bring them in, and receive a free pizza with a sticker with their phone number. Well they basically put their competitors out of business, as theirs was the only phone number everyone had from that point. And the budget was all of $700. Love it! As a marketer, this is the type of campaign we should all be trying to bring to our clients.
It’s not always about doing the big, obvious thing.
{ 2 comments }
a) Miller High Life was def my favorite super bowl ad because I knew it was coming. The idea of promoting your promotions was just too good. And the whole idea of trying to work around the cost of super bowl spots fits so well into their current campaign. If I drank beer, I’d order a High Life!
b) I am so entertained by the story of that Australian pizza place. Such a simple, slightly mean idea. Probably would work with a number of small market businesses.
Thanks for the comment. I actually missed the Miller ads – was at a party, and wasn’t paying attention to the whole game.
re: the pizza place. Not a bad campaign for $700.