The Commercial That Stole The Show On Football’s Biggest Night

On By Kirsten BeachIn ads, Brand, Commercials, Data, Google, Marketing, Media Covergence, News Media, Search Engine, Social Media, Sports, UncategorizedLeave a comment

LorettaSuperBowlCommercial

It’s quite evident that football’s biggest night is the perfect opportunity for companies to persuade all who are watching to utilize/buy their products through the use of captivating commercials. In saying that, this year’s Superbowl had commercials that ranged from happy, to humorous, to serious/emotional, to completely strange and seemingly pointless.

To get a professional opinion on these commercials, KDKA sat down with Shannon Baker–the president of a local ad agency to get her opinion on which spots were the winners and the losers on football’s biggest night. Baker is president of the Gatesman Agency in Pittsburgh and has 18 years of experience in the ad business (so she knows a good bit about how companies and clients can accurately convey a message that resonates with audiences and further persuades them to either adopt an idea, utilize a software, or buy a product.)

According to Baker, she believes that if you craft a story that is short, tight, and memorable, it is going to make people feel something–which is critical to the success of the commercial.

She says Google set the bar very high with its emotional “Loretta” ad, and many others would agree. Millions of people were raving about the heartfelt tearjerking ad that was based on a true story. For those who didn’t get to see the commercial, it begins with a man typing into Google “how to not forget,” and then asking his Google Assistant device to show him photos of his late wife named Loretta. The man continues to ask Google to remember certain things about her, like the fact that she hated his mustache, loved going to Alaska, and always snorted when she laughed. In the end, Google recites all of the things the man had asked the device to remember. It closed out with the man saying, “remember I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

Overall, Baker and many others believe that Google set the bar very high with their ‘Loretta’ ad because not only did it tug on the emotional heartstrings of audiences, but it also marketed the product in a simple yet compelling way.

Sources:

https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2020/02/03/ad-agency-super-bowl-commercial/

https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/unruly-ranks-google-tearjerker-loretta-as-the-most-effective-ad-of-super-bowl-2020/

https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/a30751020/super-bowl-google-commercial-ad-true-story/

Super Bowl: Scores, Fumbles, and A Whole Lot of Misses

On By lilybarnabyIn TelevisionLeave a comment
Retrieved from: sportingnews.com

The article “Super Bowl commercials: Who scored and who fumbled on the ad industry’s biggest stage” by CNN’s Brian Lowry reviewed the best, worst, and most lackluster commercials of the 2020 Super Bowl. With an estimated $5.6 Billion in advertising dollars spent, the bar, and viewer expectations were set very high. A majority of the ads were playful, comedic, and even satirical.

Among the winners were John Legend and Chrissy Teigen’s Genesis commercial, Bill Murray’s “Groundhog Day” parody for Jeep, and Jason Momoa’s Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loan. All of these commercials played on the usage of high profile and widely-loved celebrities as well this year’s comedic trend.

Among those commercials who left short were the Planter’s commercial, which featured the death of the beloved mascot as well as Michelob Ultra’s commercial starring Jimmy Fallon and John Cena. Critics overwhelmingly found these to be cheesy, ill-executed, or in the case of Planters, confusing.

There was also a list of “Notable and Not Bad, But…” which seemed to rival the winners and losers in length. In summary, it seems that despite the 5.6 Billion dollars invested into these highly coveted advertisement slots, many companies failed to make their mark in the way that others have in previous years. In the context of media consumption, the Super Bowl provides an unusually large audience as well as high level competition. Regardless if the content or quality of these ads, it is safe to say most everyone will be tuning in again next year.

Is It The End of The Super Bowl Commercial as We Know It?

On By Moira FollmanIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

 

Screen Shot 2020-02-04 at 10.50.00 AM

As the regular NFL season comes to a close and the Super Bowl approaches, fans and viewers alike look forward to the biggest event of the year for sports and TV commercials. Those interested in securing a slot in this year’s Super Bowl had to cough up a record-breaking $5.6 million for just 30 seconds of advertising time. For the most part, the commercials aired on Sunday were light-hearted, many sticking to themes of nostalgia, positivity, unity, and as always, celebrity. 

It appeared that many companies chose a more comedic approach this year, providing escapism from the political and social unrest present across the nation. As one chief creative officer put it, “some wonderful dumbness.” The commercials that seemed to have the most significant impact on viewers were those that took a more heartfelt approach. Google’s ad about an elderly grandfather using the platform to aid his memory of his late wife received an outpour of emotion on social media. As one advertising executive put it, “the ads that people remember most over time are the simplest ads with human stories, and that was missing for the most part.” 

Many felt that the ads featured in this year’s program lacked this human connection. They instead focused heavily on celebrity appearances and seemingly meaningless storylines that fail to leave an impact on viewers. During the broadcast, viewers are subject to over 80 commercials making it easy for some to get lost in the chaos and manic of others. With this in mind, without a clear message or impactful moment, an ad often is quickly forgotten by viewers. Hulu turned to Patriots quarterback Tom Brady while Cheetos featured rapper MC Hammer. Although entertaining, some felt the celebrity appearances distracted viewers from the meaning or purpose of the ad itself. 

In terms of Super Bowl firsts, Sabra hummus became the first Super Bowl commercial ever to feature drag queens, casting two contestants from “RuPaul’s Drag Race” to star in the commercial. This cultural milestone was met with outrage by conservative activist group One Million Moms, who recently led the charge in demanding Hallmark remove ads featuring brides kissing each other. Following the broadcast of the Sabra ad, the group began circulating a petition that the commercial is excluded from further broadcasts. Super Bowl LIV also became the first Super Bowl to features national commercials from two presidential candidates, including President Trump and presidential candidate Michael R. Bloomberg. The broadcast included two ads from President Trump, together costing his campaign more than $11 million. The political tone of these ads stood out among others that attempted to avoid sensitive topics amid the looming Democratic caucuses in Iowa and 2020 presidential election.

Still, it is crucial to consider the amount of time and consideration poured into every second of each 30-second commercial. Typically, companies spend months preparing and brainstorming ideas for their featured commercial. According to the New York Times, the awareness of Super Bowl ads usually peaks just two weeks after the initial broadcast. Less than an hour after the game had ended, not a single commercial featured was among the trending topics on Twitter. Given the lack of buzz surrounding these commercials, one can’t help but wonder where advertisers went wrong. Over the next few months, these commercials will likely disappear from public discourse entirely, slowly being integrated into regularly scheduled cable programming.

Is it time to say “Goodbye Resumé, Hello LinkedIn”?

On By Mónica G. RodríguezIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
According to its father company, Microsoft, the amount of LinkedIn users keep growing – and also globally.
Image sourced from Adweek.com

Last week, Microsoft released a report stating the company’s overall performance over their second quarter. In that statement, they demonstrated that LinkedIn reached 675 million total members by the end of 2019, including an overall global growth. They also reported a 25% increase in engagement, a much more important measurement for any social media network. Microsoft also announced that they increased the amount of money spent on the professional network by 12%.

LinkedIn seems to be becoming more and more of an industry standard. Its format provides for a more facilitated way to show your professional brand and connect with others within that professional setting. Some have criticized the increasing number of members who use the networking platform in a more casual manner, while others argue that sharing personal stuff increases interaction among members.

In September of 2019, they launched the Skill Assessments feature, which allows members to certify certain skills through tests. If you’re a Temple student, you may have also noticed that they got rid of Lynda.com as an independent platform and merged Lynda with LinkedIn Learning.

With LinkedIn gaining more members both nationally and internationally, we might be nearing an era where the traditional way of applying to a job (at least in the United States) with a resumé becomes obsolete. Not only that, but by being an accessible platform in other countries, this could hint at a more globalized workforce (provided the future professionals figure out what to do about differences in language and communicating).

What do you think? Is it good news that the oh so dreaded job hunt might become more standardized through a digital platform?

Source: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-reaches-675-million-members-continues-to-see-record-levels-of-en/571435/

Sports Betting is Big Business

On By Jeff WilloughbyIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Last week a major business deal took place between Barstool Sports, one of newest most recognizable sports media outlets in the country, and Penn National Gaming Inc. Barstool sports founder Dave Portnoy started the company back in 2003 as a gambling news periodical that grew to what it is today, a multifaceted multimillion dollar company. Since the roots of barstool are seeded in gambling the merger doesn’t only make sense from a companies standpoint it also adds a poetic punctuation mark to a past filled with barstool sports doubters.

Penn National reported that the deal was for a 36% stake in Barstool and in exchange Barstool got a massive check cut their way. Barstool sports received 135 million in cash and 28 million in nonvoting convertible preferred Penn National stock. Penn National also gets exclusive rights to use the Barstool brand in its gaming venues and products. After it was all said and done Barstool Sports value soared to 450 million dollars.

More than 17 billion dollars has been wagered since the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of legalized sports gambling netting 1.2 billion in revenue for sports books. When asked about the two companies business together Penn National Chief Executive Jay Snowden said that their companies brick and mortar casino’s older demographic will complement Barstools younger following. The name of the game for these gambling companies is retaining customers and by adding Barstool Sports loyal fan base to Penn National gaming a steady stream of gamblers will always be at their fingertips.

image: https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-barstool-sports-culture-of-online-hate-they-treat-sexual-harassment-and-cyberbullying-as-a-game

Article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/penn-national-gaming-to-buy-minority-stake-in-barstool-sports-11580274060

Netflix 2019 Fourth Quarter Review

On By Jared RohlfingIn Netflix, StreamingLeave a comment

The New York Times reports that Netflix recently acquired 420,000 new subscriptions to their streaming service in the last three months of 2019.  The company had hoped to gain around 600,000 new subscribers but fell short of their initial projections. Reed Hastings, Chief Executive Officer of the streaming juggernaut acknowledged that the recent launch of Disney Plus may be to blame for the slowed growth.  He cited the great lineup of content Disney is offering on their new service as a potential reason behind the missed projections. However, this is not to say that Netflix is in any way starting to slow down in its monumental domination of the streaming landscape; it just may have to share the limelight with Disney Plus to a certain degree.  Netflix still has a whopping sixty one million subscribers in the United States alone, making it by far the biggest streaming service available on the market. After the recent report of missed projections, Netflix’s stock still rose two percent. Ultimately, the company hopes to gain an additional thirty million subscriptions in the United States over the next few years.  

I found this article to be fascinating as it serves as a perfect example of Netflix’s staying power and ability to remain not only relevant; but the indisputable king of streaming services.  Even when the company misses their targeted projections, they still grow on the stock market which perfectly encapsulates investors faith in the company. It remains to be seen if Disney Plus and new streaming services such as NBC’s Peacock which launch in the coming months will take a chunk out of Netflix’s market share; however as of right now it is undeniable that Netflix remains top dog.  

Learning About Shapes Today, Ruling Over Humankind Tomorrow

On By Aidan PlunkettIn Artificial Intelligence, TechnologyLeave a comment

By now we have all heard the term AI or Artificial Intelligence used, and we’ve probably heard that big names like Microsoft, Google and Elon Musk are all in the AI game. A name we probably haven’t heard before is Covariant.ai, a developer of AI technology for warehouse robots. In an article from Wired.com by Will Knight, he brings this startup to our attention and explains how what they’re doing is innovative.

Knight begins by introducing how the winners of this year’s Turing Prize Geoffrey Hinton, Yann LeCun, and Yoshua Bengio, as well as other big names, such as Jeff Dean head of AI at Google, Fei-Fei Lin director of the AI Lab at Stanford, and Daniela Rus head of the Computer Science and AI Lab at MIT have all invested in Covariant.ai versus other companies that develop AI for use in warehouse or industrial context. 

The reason these well-versed ‘AI Luminaries’ decided to invest in this company is because of they are focused on AI’s learning capabilities. In 2017 when Covariant.ai was founded, they pioneered the application of machine learning to robotics. Now they’re beginning to make a name for themselves by leading the game of teaching warehouse robots how to grab and sort unfamiliar items through Reinforcement Learning and Imitation Learning. Reinforcement Learning boils down to an algorithm that trains itself through trial and error, similar to how animals learn through positive or negative feedback and Imitation Learning is learning by observing and an algorithm that runs simulations based on the information observed and already learned information. Pretty cool. 

Reinforcement Learning as well as Imitation Learning used to be considered unrealistic options due to the amount of computer/computing power required. But as technology continues to advance, the once seemingly insurmountable computer capacity and electricity needed to power the AI tech and corresponding programs has become more realistic, and is even showing success in Covariant.ai’s case.

As demand for robots in warehouse and/or industrial settings continues to increase (prediction of 12% increase in robot production between 2020-2022), companies like Covariant.ai’s fancy AI technology may not be needed to efficiently complete warehouse or industrial tasks, but as their AI quite literally continues to learn and grow, I can see a future of automated or AI technology running our planet. 

https://www.wired.com/story/ai-helps-warehouse-bots-pick-new-skills/

Chinese Social Media Erupts as Coronavirus Continues to Spread

On By Aidan PlunkettIn Censorship, China, Social MediaLeave a comment

When footage of a video posted on social media by official Chinese News Media that showed 137 health workers, bound for Wuhan and other areas affected by the Coronavirus, being praised for their sacrifice and heroism- it was met with sarcasm and criticism of how the outbreak was being handled.

In an article from the New York Times by Raymond Zhong, he writes about how the government released the video in an attempt to shape the public’s opinion surrounding the Coronavirus crisis, but the state-developed media only provoked angered comments and memes mocking government officials. As well as responses describing and posting images/videos of the reality of the situation in overcrowded and understaffed hospitals, untreated or neglected friends/family members, and even piles of seemingly lifeless bodies in hospital hallways, some presumed to be dead.

The Chinese government has a history of keeping a tight grip on censorship, but with the amount of content flooding social media because of the Coronavirus, and avoiding internet censors by speaking in ‘code’ because of the Coronavirus, Beijing is having trouble controlling the narrative. Articles and comments continue to be deleted and the Chinese government continues to warn citizens about the harm of ‘rumors’ and penalties that spreading them might bring. 

China’s government was able to cover up the SARS virus of 2000 because social media was at its early age which meant that only some reporters and journalists were focusing on it, and the scale of the issue was never realized by Chinese citizens. The age of smartphones and social media makes everyone with a camera and data plan a reporter which makes it much harder to bury a health crisis like the one posed by the Coronavirus. While the Chinese government argues that misinformation on internet platforms creates panic and reactions that cause damage when dealing with a public health crisis, but citizens still feel as if the government is withholding information and keeping economic and social stability above stopping the virus. 

Penn National Gaming Purchases Stake in Barstool Sports

On By Jared RohlfingIn Brand, Media Covergence, News Media, SportsLeave a comment

Penn National Gaming recently purchased a stake in the online media sports site Barstool Sports.  The purchase will make Penn the new official gaming partner for the next forty years. According to CNN, Penn purchased a thirty six percent stake in Barstool worth 163 million dollars.  The report states that the company will increase their stake in the company in the next three years. Penn National Gaming operates dozens of casinos and racetracks around the country so their presence in the gambling business is already quite substantial.  The Supreme Court in 2018 struck down the longtime ban on sports betting so the purchase overall makes sense and is not totally unexpected. Many companies in the industry are now beginning to expand their operations as sports betting is projected to hugely increase in its exposure nationwide.  

Barstool Sports in recent years has become a juggernaut in the sports media industry, becoming one of the dominant forces in the online community with their blog posts.  In their article covering the purchase by Penn, CNN made a great point that the purchase will begin to blur the line between sports media companies and the sports betting industry.  I found this article in particular to be interesting as I’ve witnessed over the past few years Barstool’s rise from an unknown blog site to one of the biggest media companies in the sports industry; specifically in its appeal to the younger demographic.  I also found it incredibly interesting that Penn will be Barstool’s official betting partner for the next forty years. This substantial amount of time, which I’m sure was done solely for legal purposes, shows that Penn sees tremendous value in Barstool as a brand because of this huge commitment. 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/29/media/barstool-penn-national-gaming/index.html

Music’s Biggest Night Slammed For “Pigeonholing” Black Artists

On By Moira FollmanIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Screen Shot 2020-01-29 at 5.33.04 PM

This year’s Grammys was a night that many will not soon forget, full of emotions and sorrow following the sudden and tragic death of NBA legend Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna. Although the awards began on a somber note, host Alicia Keys was determined to bring viewers, artists, and mourners together in the name of music. 

An article featured on CNN on Monday morning shared just some of the many grievances aired by artists off stage. Among one of the night’s winners was Tyler the Creator who’s 2019 record IGOR won best rap album. IGOR debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts and became Tyler’s first number one album in the United States. After accepting his award, Tyler voiced his frustrations with the Recording Academy for consistently organizing “guys who look like me” in rap and urban categories. He felt that classifying his music as rap was a “backhanded compliment” that failed to acknowledge the complexity of his genre-bending sound. Like many hip-hop artists, Tyler feels that regardless of how genre-bending his work becomes, it will always be categorized as rap or urban. Tyler even went on to criticize the use of the term “urban,” which he feels is just “a politically correct way” to say derogatory terms in reference to the black community. Tyler expressed his desire to be accepted and recognized “on a mainstream level” and not forever restricted to “urban” categories. 

This criticism has been consistently vocalized by black artists who feel they suffer unwavering mistreatment by the Academy. Artists like Frank Ocean and Kanye West have since boycotted the awards in recent years due to the Academy’s failure to recognize “era-defining” black artists. Both Ocean and West have been known to work in a range of genres outside of rap, including gospel, pop, and R&B. Tyler’s remarks come soon after the Academy announced a new diversity initiative enacted to ensure inclusivity, diversity, and equal representation of artists. Such changes, however, will offer little change if not put into practice on an industry-wide scale.