Image courtesy of https://twitter.com/esurance
For as long as I’ve been studying Marketing (and Advertising,
PR, etc.) one of the biggest nights of the year for our industry hands down, is
the Super Bowl. Bob Kolt, Advertising Professor at MSU, says it’s “like the
Oscars in [the] advertising field, ‘it’s the biggest night of the year and
Madison Avenue puts on their best spot’” (CBS Detroit, 2016).
A more and more common behavior that is taking hold of advertising
is utilizing a call to action that directs viewers to various social media
platforms rather than to a specific product or service. “In the past,
traditional marketers didn’t have the luxury of having a two-way conversation
with customers, but they did have a captive audience” (Kerpen, 2016, pg. 46). Coupling this captive audience with the ability
to build a relationship through dialogue online is changing the game. Super
Bowl commercials (among many others) have bridged this gap by the use of
hashtags.
There were many great Super Bowl commercials that stood out
to me this year. Upon reflecting Esurance was by far the most top of mind as I woke
up this morning wondering how their sweepstakes went (and I’m sure I wasn’t the
only one). “The main reason the online insurance brand drew so much attention
was that it ran a competition on Super Bowl Sunday, giving away $1 million to
Twitter users tweeting the hashtag #EsuranceSweepstakes during and after the
game” (O’Reilly, 2016).
Their commercial was funny, intriguing, and pure genius:
Video courtesy of https://youtu.be/WE04KzL4kPs
Dave Kerpen, writer of likeable
social media, recommends that it’s better to spark a conversation with your
customers by avoiding marketing a product to them (Kerpen, 2016). He proposes
that “all you have to do is stop thinking like a marketer and start thinking
like your consumer” (Kerpen, 2016, pg. 40). Esurance followed this analogy and
started a conversation not about a product or service they offer but about a
sweepstakes and the chance to win money (who doesn’t want that?!). What’s even
more interesting is that the sweepstakes runs until Monday February 8th,
2016 – a day after the Super Bowl! This very minute followers are still
tweeting and retweeting #EsuranceSweepstakes.
Esurance successfully moved the conversation from a TV
commercial onto social media, where they can take part in the discussion and
consumers are responding like crazy. Sarah Evans, Esurances’ Social Media
Communications Specialist said “we wanted to leverage second-screen culture, no
on these days is just watching the TV. We’re surrounded by technology. We know
the only way into somebody’s house, into somebody’s life, is not just through
the TV screen, but through handheld devices and social media” (Castillo, 2016).
According to Amobee Brand Intelligence, Esurance was the
number 1 brand with the most twitter mentions during the Super Bowl at 835,101
tweets (O’Reilly, 2016). Second place went to Doritos at 238,770 tweets (O’Reilly,
2016) as a comparison. To me, this campaign was not only successful due to
their consumer response and the amount of tweets it received, but it was also just
a good commercial. It authentically made me laugh out loud while watching it.
My personal favorite? The man rolling through his fence on the lawnmower (https://youtu.be/WE04KzL4kPs).
Esurance has proved one of the many significant points Kerpen
discuses. That, “the loudest, costliest advertising formats, such as TV
commercials, don’t dominate the conversation anymore because, in fact, they no
longer own the conversation. The conversation exists on social networks”
(Kerpen, 2016, pg. 69).
~Nicole
References:
Castillo,
M. (2016, February). What was Super Bowl
50’s most talked about ad? Retrieved on http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/08/
CBS
Detroit (2016, February 7). Commercials
During Super Bowl: ‘It’s Like The Oscars of Advertising’. Retrieved from http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2016/02/07/commercials-during-super-bowl-its-like-the-oscars-of-advertising/
Kerpen,
D. (2015). Likeable social media (2nd
ed.). New York: McGraw Hill Education
O’Reilly, L. (2016, February). The most-mentioned brand on Twitter during the Super Bowl didn’t even
advertise on TV during the game. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/esurance-most-mentioned-brand-super-bowl-2016-2?utm_content=10ThingsAdvertising&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Sailthru&nr_email_referer=1&utm_campaign=Post+Blast+%28advertising%29%3A+The+10+things+in+advertising+you+need+to+know+today&utm_term=Advertising%3A+The+Brief
Hi Nicole,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post! While I am not a sports fan, I always look forward to all of the commercials during the Super Bowl! With the integration of social media into so many Super Bowl commercials, it has made it all more enjoyable!
I like how you stated, “Esurance successfully moved the conversation from a TV commercial onto social media, where they can take part in the discussion and consumers are responding like crazy.” Social media is playing such an important role in these campaigns since consumers expect to engage in two-way communication with companies. Also, what better way to engage consumers then through a $1M giveaway by just re-tweeting the brand’s tweets? Pure genius, I agree.
What’s really interesting is that Esurance was able to pull this off with just two commercials- one before and one after the game. “Esurance managed to dominate ad-related hashtags without any in-game TV commercials or official NFL sponsorship” (Chaykowski, 2016). The campaign generated an impressive 2.5 million hashtag mentions and 1.5 billion impressions!
Esurance turned their consumers into the marketers for their campaign by offering the $1M, resulting in a much cheaper campaign. This is also something Esurance has done for the past couple of years. What do you think the chances are that Esurance will opt out of paying for ads in the next big game all together and move straight to social media? Or do you still think it’s important that they get that air time to get the word out?
Chaykowski, K. (2016). How Esurance Engineered Its Way To Winning The Hashtag Bowl. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathleenchaykowski/2016/02/08/how-esurance-engineered-its-way-to-winning-the-hashtag-bowl/#1926d296266e
Alyssa,
DeleteI’m glad you enjoyed my post!
I don’t think Esurance will opt out of paying for ads in the next big game all together. They still need to target and reach that captive audience that is watching and impulse them to come online. Before this promotion, I don’t think many consumers would think of following their insurance carrier (or a competitor of theirs) on social media. I’m curious to see how many people who followed them on twitter, unfollow them over the course of several months. How many followers will they actually retain? I certainly wouldn’t be surprise if they reference the success of this campaign and build off of it for next year. If it’s not broke, don’t try to fix it!
This campaign also made me think of David Scott’s book The New Rules of Marketing and PR, where he examines an organizations need to move to social media and participate in engaging dialogue with their customers (Scott, 2015). Some of the old rules Scott suggests discarding included that “advertising needed to appeal to the masses” and advertising being “one-way: company to consumer” (Scott, 2015, pg.20). The #Esurancesweepstakes campaign evolves both of these old rules into a new concept. The idea of advertising to the masses and communicating at them, but only for long enough to direct their attention and conversation to social media. Scott does resolve that “there is room in many marketing and PR programs for traditional techniques” (Scott, 2015, pg. 17). Do you think this is how he envisioned the two merging?
~Nicole
References
Scott, David M. (2015). The New Rules of Marketing & PR. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Hi Nicole!
DeleteEsurance definitely had the most obvious and direct tactic in bringing their campaign to social media. Instead of creating a memorable hashtag and hoping it would go viral, they offered incentive for doing so.
Kerpin says “in order to win your customers mindshare now, your marketing can’t be solely about your brand, or products, or features and benefits anymore. More than anything, you have to get your customers talking” (Kerpin, 2015 pg. 46). Esurance tackles both of these things. They keep the messaging very simple and action oriented- “Esurance saves you money.” This ad tells the consumer everything they want to hear- how they can save money, and how they can get more money, redirecting them to social media.
But do you think this was a successful campaign for you personally? I know you mentioned that you woke up wondering how the campaign performed, but did you partake in it? If not, why not?
Kerpen, D. (2015). Likeable social media (2nd ed.). New York : McGraw Hill Education
Chaykowski, K. (2016). How Esurance Engineered Its Way To Winning The Hashtag Bowl. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathleenchaykowski/2016/02/08/how-esurance-engineered-its-way-to-winning-the-hashtag-bowl/#1926d296266e
Hi Nicole,
DeleteI think this is exactly what Scott envisioned of traditional and new marketing & PR practices merging. Scott (2015) mentions "advertising is still used for mega-brands with broad reach and probably still works for some organizations and products (p. 18).
The Esurance campaign was certainly targeted to the masses and by starting the conversation by advertising to millions of people was definitely the way to do it. Once Esurance got the word out about the $1M giveaway, it was a piece of cake getting viewers onto social media platforms for a chance to win the prize. Considering everyone has their smartphone out with them during the game, it really took minimal effort to enter the contest and the brand got a ton of free marketing from consumers!
Scott, D. M. (2015). The New Rules of Marketing & PR. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Danielle,
DeleteGreat question! Personally I do think it was a successful campaign because it resonated with me the following day. I did not participate by tweeting #EsuranceSweepstakes but I am also not a devoted Twitter user and entering contests like that is not really my style. So even though I was not participating in the conversation that was taking place online, I was watching and listening to see what happened.
What’s interesting is how crazed other people became in spreading this hashtag. “Some people have tweeted and retweeted about #EsuranceSweepstakes so much that they were temporarily put in ‘Twitter jail’ and couldn’t tweet for awhile. Meanwhile, other people created bots to automatically tweet their entries (Dwilson, 2016), even though this was against the official rules (http://www2.esurance.com/passitonrules/).
Do you think this frenzy on twitter actually caused some consumers to develop negative feelings or resentment towards Esurance? Should the organization address it should any come to light?
~Nicole
References
Dwilson, S. (2016, February 8) Is #EsuranceSweepsteas Real or a Scam? Retrieved from http://heavy.com/tech/2016/02/esurancesweepstakes-esurance-sweepstakes-real-scam-hoax-fake-rules-how-to-win-enter-tweet-twitter-jail-winner-won/