Tick, tock. They have 31 and a half seconds. Tick, tock. They spent $1.5 million to score. Tick, tock. Their shareholders await a lofty return on investment.
I could be talking about the two teams squaring off on Super Bowl Sunday, but I am not. I am talking about the play between the play, the 31 second television clips between the 31 yard touchdown drive. I am talking about those big-ticket television advertisements. There will be problems with advertisements on Super Bowl Sunday, but the issue is larger. Advertising, some argue, is on the mats. Is it down for the count? The short answer: yes and no. The not-so-short answer: please read on.
Advertising has lost its purpose; it has become art. Artwork can explain this phenomenon. Before photography, painters stroked realist images onto canvases. Almost all of the turtles, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael, painted in a realistic style to communicate images from person to person or generation to generation. Only when photography snapped into life did painters start to paint in abstract form la Matisse. Painting lost its communicative purpose. Now advertising has become art and similarly lost its purpose. Coke commercials can be found in the Library of Congress. Ivory soap ads grace the walls of the Smithsonian. Absolut Vodka ads adorn the walls of Dartmouth dorm rooms.
Others argue that the artistic side of advertisement is an intrinsic feature that should not be dismissed. Sal Kibler, President of Atlanta-based advertiser MATCH Inc., cited the unique "blend of art and business" that influenced her to enter the advertising universe. "It is one of the few fields that combine both areas," said Kibler. Art can be a good thing. "Advertising," declared maven Marshall McLuhan, "is the greatest art form of the twentieth century."
The overriding point is that sometimes art-advertisements are judged on artistic merits, leaving the business side abandoned. Some advertising agencies are more proud of winning Golden Lions at Cannes (the advertising equivalent of the Academy Awards) than fulfilling their purpose. What is the purpose of advertising? To convince consumers to consume. Or, as Kibler aptly says, advertising's purpose "is to fulfill the needs of its clients." Yet if you were to walk into many ad agencies, you would see Golden Lions on the walls, not the balance sheets of clients.
Does artistic ability win sales? The answer is dispiriting. In 1996, Nissan ran a TV commercial starring Barbie, Ken and G.I. Joe, accompanied by Van Halen's "You Really Got Me." USA Today and Time festooned the ad "the best of the year." But did it win sales? Toyota was up seven percent and the industry was up three percent. Nissan was down three percent. The Wall Street Journal ran a front-page story, "Nissan Ad Campaign Was a Hit Everywhere but in the Showrooms." The company lost, yet we hold the advertising agency in high regard because of its creativity. This is like awarding a lawyer for losing the case but having a gorgeous brief.
General Motors was America's largest advertiser in 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000. Its advertising budget averaged $3.275 billion. GM's market share declined each year, from 32.3 percent to 28.1 percent. Chevrolet spends $314 on advertising per vehicle, Ford $170. Yet Ford's market share has increased from 28 to 33 percent. Advertising can find solace in Kibler's comment, "Good advertising cannot fix bad products." If advertising is, indeed, down for the count, what is pinning it down?
Step forward, public relations. "PR," Kibler describes, "is the placing and pitching stories of products." For instance, a year before inventor Dean Kamen unveiled Segway, the "human transporter," news of the invention was leaked. When the product launched, media coverage was endless. Segway enjoyed credible promotion from the media, not from a biased company selling something from George Jetson's garage. In 1996, Rosie O'Donnell escalated the Tickle-Me Elmo doll to national prominence, making it a coveted Christmas commodity. And today, Linux has reached 99 percent name recognition in the high tech community with little advertisement. Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Starbucks, The Body Shop and AOL all built brands using PR. PR is growing faster than a Princeton ego. The principal problem with PR, however, is that "you cannot control the message because it is carried through a third party," says Kibler. What if Rosie O'Donnell compared Elmo to Snoop Dogg's henchmen? PR could well stand for "public risk."
Super Bowl ads, in fact, fulfill two purposes: advertising and generating PR. At the exorbitant price of $1.5 million, Super Bowl ads are the subject of tomorrow's coffee breaks. The media (like me) write about these ads. A few Super Bowl Sundays ago, Budweiser ran its "What's Up" ad, which garnered many accolades. Did the ad work? Budweiser's U.S. sales have fallen every year since 1990, from 50 million barrels to 35 million in 2000. What's up Budweiser? The sales slipped, but the advertisement generated pitchers of PR. A side note: Keystone Light has seen a steady increase in sales. We know who and where to attribute this trend.
Advertising or PR? The $1.5 million question. "You need both," says Kibler. Too often, however, companies rely on one. The trick comes in fulfilling the clients' need with both tools. If advertising is down for the count, it ought to realize with whom it is needlessly fighting: PR. Both advertising and PR should embrace, letting the real competition take place on the field.
