PLB Sports Nation

First things first, congratulations to your 2010 Super Bowl champions, the New Orleans Saints!

As is now tradition, Saints QB Drew Brees teamed up with Disney for their now annual “I’m going to Disney World!” commercial.  More details from Chip and Co.

On Monday (Feb. 8), Brees was to go to the place where millions of vacationers celebrate their personal milestone moments – Walt Disney World Resort. He was to be joined in the Magic Kingdom by NFL Youth Football players, who will participate with the Saints star in a Super Bowl celebration parade down Main Street, U.S.A.

This latest commercial is the 42nd of a series that began in 1987 following Super Bowl XXI. The first “I’m going to Disney World” commercial, featuring New York Giants quarterback Phil Simms, was regarded as a groundbreaking concept – a produced national commercial involving a current event, airing on major networks within hours of its conclusion. Brees joins a lineup of people from sports and beyond who have celebrated milestone accomplishments in “I’m going to Disney World” commercials.

UPDATE: Drew Brees is scheduled to visit Walt Disney World Monday for a special ticker-tape parade at 11:55 a.m. at Magic Kingdom Park. (via Chip & Co.)

Brees seems like a genuinely nice guy, and he seems like he really has a special affection for the city of New Orleans, so it was great to see him and the city win the Super Bowl last night.  Who knows, maybe we’ll see some PLB-Drew Brees connection in the near future?  Or maybe one of the other Saints?

Stay tuned!

It’s the good time, great taste…

Although I’m not always the biggest fan of their food, its hard to deny that McDonalds has had some classic commercials over the years.  Arguably the greatest series of commercials were the Larry Bird/Michael Jordan “Showdown” spots where both made impossible trick shots in order to win a tasty big mac.

During the Super Bowl, history will repeat itself, or at least get an update, with two new NBA superstars; Lebron James and Dwight Howard.  The video is below.

The best thing about this commercial for McDonalds?  It has a dual marketing power.  Don’t believe me?  How many of you are going back to find the Michael Jordan/Larry Bird commercial?

My only question?  Why couldn’t McDonalds find someone other than Dwight Howard?  He’s a great personality, but he’s really not known for his shooting…

Previously, we had been wondering what Pepsi was going to do with their money, since they chose to not advertise during the Super Bowl.

Now that we know where the money went, it may be surprising to say, but it looks like they made the right choice.

Introducing the Pepsi Refresh Project and DEWmocracy.

The Pepsi Refresh Project and the DEWmocracy campaigns are part of a crowdsourcing effort that’s part of the larger PepsiCo plan to more closely integrate consumers with the brand. “Driving consumer interest and engagement takes imagination and often a certain amount of reinvention, so it’s fair to say we’re rethinking everything we do from product development to marketing campaigns across our entire portfolio,” said Bart Casabona, a Mountain Dew spokesman.

What we’re calling it [is] collective intelligence,” O’Brien said. “It’s less about crowdsourcing, but more about collaboration.” PepsiCo looks at DEWmocracy, which has literally been driven by word of mouth, as a way of doing business rather than an ad campaign, he said, and the most important thing to recognize is the passion consumers feel for Mountain Dew is like nothing that’s out there.

According to O’Brien, PepsiCo looks at social media as the best way to get direct dialog with their fans and for the company to hear from those fans without filters. “It’s been great for us to have this really unique dialogue that we normally wouldn’t have,” he said. “It really has opened our eyes up.”

Convince & Convert’s Baer said the DEWmocracy campaign fits with Mountain Dew’s brand and customer profile. He said giving customers ownership of the brand is a fantastic idea.

“What they’re trading off is reach for depth and they’re trading short-term impact for long-term impact,” he said. Baer sees the process of brands asking customers to craft better products or services as a trend. He pointed out that companies aren’t just soliciting customer input, but they’re putting it into practice. And some business decisions are now based solely on customer feedback. (via Mashable)

Interesting.  Basically, like was mentioned in the article, Pepsi is using social media not as an advertising campaign, but as a way of doing business.  They’re using social media to actually let the fans choose the product from top to bottom; name, flavor, packaging…everything.  Of course, this amount of engagement not only makes the customer more likely to buy the product, it brings with it the likelihood of repeat business; which is great news for Pepsi.

So, in the end, what did Pepsi get?  They skipped a star-studded commercial about their Pepsi product, which would have maybe been remembered by consumers for a few months or so, and replaced it with allowing the consumers to design a product, leading to potential long-term engagement.

Maybe the Super Bowl ad doesn’t look so good after all?

Of course, this only works with Pepsi because they are already established in the American marketplace.  An upstart company probably couldn’t pull off this same move because they wouldn’t have generated the user-interest in their products.  But, for Pepsi, it looks like it works.

Now that the championship games are over, the nation, and to a larger extent, the world, gears up for another Super Bowl.  This year though, amidst a continued recession in the United States, some are beginning to question…”Is the Super Bowl still Super?”

The Super Bowl is the pinnacle in American sports achievement and its the marketing exec’s  dream event.  100 million people viewing your 30-second spot.  And true, it costs a pretty penny, but its worth it…right?

Maybe…but maybe not.

Last year, the 100+ 30 second commercials that ran throughout the Super Bowl cost about $3 million dollars a piece, bringing in approximately $213 million in revenue for NBC.  This year, ad prices have seemingly hovered somewhere around the $2.7 – $2.8 million dollar range, prices which are actually in line with the 2008 Super Bowl, although its rumored that some ads have been going for as low as $2.5 million, especially as CBS looks to sell the few remaining spots before the game on February 7th.

The line of thinking that everyone would quickly purchase all of the ads due to the “sale price” isn’t necessarily without backing, its just not quite correct.  Last month, Pepsi surprised the sports business world when they decided to pull all of their Super Bowl advertising, choosing instead to focus the advertising dollars on internet and new media marketing.

Pepsi had been a mainstay in Super Bowl advertising for the last 23 years.

But why in the world would Pepsi pass up a sale on the largest sporting event in America to focus on the internet?

The recession.

In economic downturns, companies are more likely to buy Super Bowl advertising when they want to make an impact by jumpstarting a brand or introducing themselves, said Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Kellogg School of Management. But it’s an expensive proposition for companies like Pepsi and FedEx that would otherwise use the game to simply remind people they’re still out there. (via Yahoo!)

“…companies looking to jumpstart a brand or introduce themselves…” According to TNS Media Intelligence, many new advertisers are getting into the Super Bowl game this year, as almost a quarter of the companies have never run an ad during the game.

So where does this leave us?  Less revenue generated from ad spots, long-time advertisers spending their ad dollars elsewhere…Is the Super Bowl still “super”? There are still many companies that would say “yes”.  You can still expect commercials from a lot of long time sponsors during the game, Frito-Lay (a Pepsi subsidiary), Anhesuer-Busch, and Go Daddy, amongst others.  And of course, the millions of fans will still be glued to their television sets during the game, but still, that nagging question still remains…Maybe its not a fair question with the elasticity of the ad prices so easily effected due to the recession.  Maybe everything will not only bounce back, but exceed expectations by this time next year.  But, maybe not.  Only time will tell.

Minor league baseball is usually my first thought when I think of crazy marketing promotions.  “Mohawk haircut night” or bringing a goldfish to the game…I think one minor league team actually had an Elliot Spitzer night after the scandal broke (no clue what you were supposed to do for that night…)

In any case, its always interesting to see the professional teams venture into the same kind of interesting sponsorship ideas.  Case in point?  A hockey team having a yoga night.

The Florida Panthers are getting in on the yoga craze helping to celebrate Yoga Day USA on Jan. 23. Panthers Yoga Day includes a 90-minute yoga instruction session before the Panthers-Toronto Maple Leafs game that night.

Tickets are $20 for the game and the yoga, which starts at 4:30 p.m. Bring your own yoga mat and change of clothes and stay for the game in an upper level seat at Bank Atlantic Center. Already have a ticket to the game? It’s just $10 more for the yoga class. Of the yoga tickets, $5 from each purchase goes to the Yoga Alliance. Check out details at floridapanthers.com. (via The Business of Sports)

Yoga night…at a hockey game.  I guess it sort of makes sense…I mean, goalies have to stretch and be limber, right?  Although when I think of the average hockey fan, I don’t really think of downward facing dog, I think more of beer.

I’m actually very curious to see how this promotion turns out.