Power outage at Super Bowl, Perfect timing for advertisers to shine
Power Out? No Problem.
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As I sit listening to the broadcasters talk endlessly how the power outage in the Superdome will upset the momentum of the game, my 14 year old daughter started telling her mother Oreo had just posted a tweet to their followers saying “Power out? No problem.”.
Immediately, I thought to myself “this was marketing gold”.
There are advertisers who have paid millions to get the spotlight for just a few seconds for the “Big Show”, and here Oreo may end up being crowned the come-from-behind winner of the Super Bowl advertising war. They certainly are poised to be talked about as much as any paid spot in contention.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post talking about taking topical events (such as the Super Bowl) and infusing them into your writing. In fact, just over a month ago, I decided to write a story using arguably one of the most viral videos of 2012 (Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That) to tell a story about a co-worker’s statement to me about how little time he had to invest in growing his social media presence.
As of tonight, that blog post is still generating almost 100 clicks a day, and has brought in over 1000 new visitors to my website. Sweet Brown surely knows how to entertain a crowd!
As I write this, I keep checking twitter and see other brands and individuals posting hilarious tweets. It seems the world is full of comedians. But one thing I notice as I read about the second most entertaining part of this Super Bowl XLVII, (Beyonce Rocked!) even though there are several brands jumping in on an advertisers wet dream, Oreo is one of the only tweets where I’ve seen someone so perfectly take advantage of a real-time story and match their product so perfectly to the event.
Time will tell how Oreo is able to leverage the viral nature of their marketing team’s efforts. The power just came back on, and the game is underway now. At last check (before posting), the tweet had just over 10k RTs and a little over 2,500 favorites. I’m sure this number will undoubtedly skyrocket and we will see as many stories about it as stories about the power outage itself.
This should serve as a lesson to all marketers and advertisers. You should be ready at any given moment to seize the opportunity to possibly outdo millions of dollars of pre-planned advertising. It could be that one viral moment we all dream about!
Btw… as I wrote that last word advertising… San Francisco scored a touchdown… Hmmm. maybe the power outage will end up showing it helped more than just Oreo.
