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We're live-tweeting ad ratings on SuperBowl Sunday; Free PDF scoring sheets available

1/28/2014

We will be live-tweeting our evaluations as each network commercial appears on the SuperBowl broadcast. Follow @HeyBeerDan on Twitter for instantaneous updates (or just watch for us posting #SuperBowl), and come back to the HeyBeerDan blog for more complete ratings as the game progresses.

As we've pointed out before, most popular SuperBowl-commercial ratings are based solely on entertainment value. "Was it funny?" being the primary issue for amateurs. But funny or not, advertising has a serious business purpose. It's designed to increase the perception that a certain brand is more special, more distinctive than others. Accomplishing this is what we call "Job #1."

To assess whether a commercial makes the grade, we've created our simple three-question rating system explained here...

How to get your scoring sheets

If you'd like to play along on SuperBowl Sunday, you can free-download PDF scoring sheets showing all scheduled network commercial sponsors by clicking here.

Now, grab your favorite beer and a pencil, and enjoy the game! And don't forget to watch for our 40 live-tweets as the evening unfolds.

The SuperBowl: Bud Light REALLY needs a win

1/26/2014

Who's got the greatest motivation to win the SuperBowl?

Broncos... Seahawks... Bud Light?

It is no exaggeration to say that fixing Bud Light's business trend is the most critical marketing task in the entire beer business, arguably in all of marketing these days. SuperBowl hyperbole aside, this is a truly historic moment for the country's largest beer brand.

Continuing an alarming trend, Bud Light's sales volume dropped 1.5 million barrels in 2013 alone. No other Big Beer brand suffered to that degree. For craft beer reference, that much volume exceeds the total size of Sierra Nevada, Lagunitas and Deschutes combined.

Spending in the vicinity of $100 million a year on advertising that has no positive effect on sales is neither smart nor sustainable. So, Bud Light's new ads--due to be unveiled on SuperBowl Sunday-- will replace the unremarkable (but prophetically titled) "It's only weird if it doesn't work" campaign. As we've opined here before, those ads failed at Job #1 for any ad, namely making the brand special and distinctive from its competition. Indeed, Bud Light has been a serial violator of our "Seven Deadly Sins."

On one hand, finding better ads than the "weird" campaign should be a low hurdle. But on the other, Bud Light's volume trend makes successful new advertising absolutely critical.

This increases pressure on client folks and their ad agencies, and that can sometimes lead to flawed decisions. So, in addition to our quick three-question assessment of every SuperBowl ad, we will also be analyzing Bud Light's new ads across all of the 7-sins criteria. In particular, you may want to watch for:

- (2) With all the celebrities shown in the teaser ads, are they only in the ads for entertainment, or do they support in some way a story making Bud Light seem special?

- (4) Do BudLight's new ads actually communicate something specific about the beer that is unique, or otherwise interesting?

- (5) If you replaced every Bud Light package shown in the ads with a Miller Lite package, would it make any difference? If the answer is "no difference," the ads may be selling beer in general, but not Bud Light.

Much has been made of the $8- million-a-minute cost of a SuperBowl ad. But if Bud Light's new ads make the grade, that'll be about the best investment around.

Count us among Bud Light's fans hoping for solid new ads on 2.2.14. Because a return to health for its largest brand will be an important win for Big Beer.

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The Author

Dan Fox is a real beer guy.

For more than half his 30-year career at ad agency, Foote, Cone & Belding, he ran the Coors Brewing account. Leading a group of dozens of advertising professionals, Dan also personally wrote the Pete Coors "Somewhere near Golden, Colorado" commercials, designed the Coors NASCAR graphics, authored sales-convention speeches, and most important of all, formulated marketing strategy for virtually every Coors brand, including Coors Light, Keystone, Killian's Irish Red and more. His proudest achievement? "Our team had every Coors brand growing at once."

Over his advertising career, Dan was personally involved in the analysis, planning and creation of thousands of ads for a variety of products and services. By way of this blog, he freely shares his expertise about what works, and what doesn't, when it comes to selling beer.

If you're in the beer-marketing business--or just interested in the subject--you may want to read what "HeyBeerDan" has to say.

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We're live-tweeting ad ratings on SuperBowl Sunday; Free PDF scoring sheets available

The SuperBowl: Bud Light REALLY needs a win

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