Provocative commercials seemed to be the trend for this year's Super Bowl, and despite the negative reaction towards many of them, company's like Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz actually benefited from their multi-million dollar ads.
Volkswagen generated a lot of attention and complains about racial stereotyping, meanwhile viewers of Super Bowl 47 also weren't too pleased with Mercedes-Benz showcasing supermodel Kate Upton the way that they did according to Reuters.
On average, companies spent nearly $4 million per commercial during the big game, an easy price to pay for most since nearly 100 million viewers watch the Super Bowl every year. It is then up to the company to generate buzz around the new commercial, occasionally releasing what quarter the spot will appear during so that people don't miss it.
"It's almost a game around the game," said Ammiel Kamon, executive vice president for Kontera, which tracks online brand and content marketing. He stated that the strategy has been tested in earlier campaigns according to Reuters.
Mercedes-Benz pitched towards younger viewers by featuring super model Kate Upton, who is shown in a car-wash teaser. The video was released before the big game by the company on YouTube and Upton herself tweeted it to her nearly 697,000 followers. The company claims they accomplished exactly what they wanted despite the overall negativity.
"We knew it would be polarizing," said Mercedes USA spokeswoman Donna Boland. "If it's not polarizing then people aren't going to talk about it."
Volkswagen's commercials featured a white American man speaking in a Jamaican accent, which many people didn't like because they felt it was stereotyping all Jamaican people. The ad did win the endorsement from national officials, who stated it was "a celebration of reggae music and the country's hospitable culture" according to Reuters.
Volkswagen's chief marketing officer also stated that an online poll showed people "overwhelmingly" liked the ad, and pre-release testing showed a generally positive reaction from Jamaican viewers and others.
SodaStream revealed before the big game that CBS rejected their Super Bowl commercial, which showed bottles of Coke and Pepsi combusting spontaneously as they were being delivered to a store at the moment someone used a SodaStream product. Coke and Pepsi were two of the biggest sponsors for the 2013 Super Bowl.
"They're getting a lot more out of it than their money's worth," said Ronald Goodstein, professor at the McDonough School of Business. "If you can create a controversy that enhances the brand to the target audiences, then go for it."
Approximately 108.4 million viewers turned in to watch the Baltimore Ravens beat the San Francisco 49ers.
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