I’ll admit it–I, too, am a shameless fan of Old Spice’s viral hit commercial.
Raise your hand if you think it was an example of how a Super Bowl spot is still a smart investment.
Guess what?
It wasn’t a Super Bowl commercial. As Barbara Lippert noted on AdWeek, the spot actually first aired the day after the Super Bowl, during American Idol, LOST and the Olympic coverage. Which, granted, is still a sizable media buy, but also considerably less than a Super Bowl spot.
What I found fascinating, though, was this:
And the agency bought some keywords on search sites to attract people who, in the Super Bowl afterglow, were looking online for funny commercials.
So in essence, the agency used paid search to convince people they saw what they didn’t see.
While the visual sleight of hand in the spot itself is impressive, to a web geek like me, this search marketing smoke and mirrors is equally interesting.
It wouldn’t have worked if the content itself–the spot–hadn’t been intrinsically compelling. But let’s say you had online video specialists like Rhett and Link create a similarly engaging spot (as they did for a local business in my hometown last week.)
Let’s say you had a budget for keyword search to own “funny commercials” keyphrases for your business’ geographic area for a week.
You could, in theory, do your own version of this “piggyback Super Bowl play.”
Maybe I’m crazy. What do you think?
