The audience has an audience.

Here's the video of my speech to the 4As conference last week.

Marketers must remain relevant at a time in which consumers are themselves the broadcasters, sharing content with their own audience via social, mobile and online channels.  By adopting a brand syndication model, with the persuasive power of video's sight, sound and motion at its core, marketers can authentically join the conversation.

Today is #NearlyDouble day!

Tune in later today for the reveal of #nearlydouble.

The mainstreaming of Social TV.

The 2012 Super Bowl set a new high water mark for Social TV.

TV has long been a personal experience, perhaps shared in real time by one or two fellow couch potatoes in your den or the following morning with co-workers.

Social media has changed that.  Now TV is shared in real time with friends and strangers who share your passion for Grey's Anatomy or SNL. This trends blows up during major events.

According to Bluefin Labs, the 12.2 million social media comments during and after the Super Bowl represented a 578% increase over last year. During the final three minutes, tweet volume was about 10,000 tweets per second.  There were 985,000 comments about the commercials alone. (That's wikibranding in action.) H&M/"Beckham", Chrysler/"Clint", and Doritos/"missing cat" led this conversation.

A couple of smart marketers recognized this by integrating a social aspect into their Super Bowl promotions. Chevy offered an app to use during the game as part of a real time car giveaway. Coke let viewers stream the Polar Bowl and watch the bears react in real time to the game and the commercials.

Social TV requires that we plan a conversation, a social experience, not just a campaign.  Yes, we want to reach our audience. But then what?  Enable the conversation with social tools.  And, as always, inspire the conversation with a killer creative idea.

Super Bowl commercials 2010

The big commercials on yesterday's Super Bowl seemed a bit smaller than those in years past.  Perhaps the problem is that we tend to use as our benchmark the waste-money-at-all-costs commercials of the dot.com days when you didn't have to say anything, just have a chimp clanging a symbol or punch somebody in the nuts to get a laugh.

So while the spots seemed a bit smaller in scale, many seemed to nail a new model:  humor that reinforces a big brand message without getting in the way of it.  

Some exemplars included Snickers ("Betty White"), Bud Light ("Lost", "T-Pain"), Coke ("Simpsons") and, as usual, Monster ("Fiddlin' Beaver").  

Super Bowl ads need to draw a laugh in a room full of noisy, well-lubricated fans.  Talking animals, guy-humor, and, yes, people getting punched in the nuts, are all part of the formula.  But using this huge stage to land a big message must be part of the formula as well, particularly in an increasingly results oriented climate.

Two other consistent themes yesterday:  seemingly guys have been neutered beyond belief and several brands that start with the letter "D" (dudes?) are here to help men be men again (Dodge, Dove, Dockers); Danica Patrick must move on and leave GoDaddy in her dust – she's better than them.  I think.

And, finally, one observation:  As more and more marketing budgets get redirected to digital and search marketing, it was ironic to see Google running a Super Bowl spot.  

Time to retire the babies and animals.

There has long been a formula for creating a great Super Bowl commercial. And therein lies the problem.

The old formula is tired and out of step with the times. This premise was on full display yesterday. The decline in the quality of the spots has nothing to do with the notion that marketers need to play it safe because the economy sucks. I don’t subscribe to this school of thought. Now more than ever, we want to be entertained.

No, the dynamic that is undermining the age-old Super Bowl formula is YouTube. In a pre-YouTube era, animals, animal puppets and babies doing hilarious things used to be really fresh and funny. Super Bowl commercials were the original viral video. Now we can see even more outrageous and funnier videos from around the globe every day of the year with just a few clicks of our collective mouse. It is hard to out-zany the Internet.

The Super Bowl is still one of the best places to be if you want to reach a huge, tuned-in audience. But don’t go there for buzz. Three million is a lot to pay for a brief burst of chatter. If you show up, have something to say.

Be in the Super Bowl when you need to launch something meaningful, perhaps a new product or a new positioning, because it still has the power to place new ideas squarely in the middle of pop culture. Get more than :30 for your money ($3m to be precise) by teasing weeks ahead of time to get the entertainment and news media to extend the message. Design an employee promotion around the sponsorship to use it as a morale-boosting event. Redesign the website (message and functionality) to capitalize on the inevitable burst of traffic.

So what did I like yesterday? Pepsi and Gatorade stood out. Both were launching big brand positioning campaigns. Both used it as a reveal after weeks of teaser advertising. Both executed well. The Denny’s spot was extremely funny, and is supported by a big promotion offering free Grand Slam breakfasts tomorrow all across the country.

Don't get me wrong. I like seeing guys getting whacked in the head, Mr Potato Head driving a car, a Cheetah unleashing killer pigeons and fully agree with Pedigree that dogs rule. But folks, we're talking about spending $3m for something you could have done any day of the year.

Super game. Dull ads

As a passionate Giants fan it is safe to say that I had a good time yesterday.

But as an advertising professional I felt a bit underwhelmed by the caliber of the advertising.

Many were entertaining. But few possessed that intangible Super Bowl-ness...big, pop-cultural, fun. Even fewer seemed to have anything relevant to say about the brand, such as the Planters "uni-brow" spot. I loved the Bridgestone "screaming animals" spot, but it would have been a much better spot for the Saab featured in the spot than the tires the car rode upon. As for Bud, good spots, but I've seen the dog and horse thing before. Tide's talking stain was funny, but did it have Super Bowl-ness?

My fav? The Coke "balloon float" spot. It was classic Coke (for Coke Classic). Big. Entertaining. Unexpected twist. Utterly charming. And Charlie Brown finally won something. Coke is about smiles. And that spot was just that.

The Audi spot that I wrote about last week lived up to its billing. It was extremely dramatic and signaled a new era for Audi. The R8 is gorgeous. Although I think the spot itself will work better in other programming -- e.g., Academy Awards. Super Bowl fans like to laugh.

Audi's Super Bowl secret

Marketers will pay about $2.7m to advertise in the upcoming Super Bowl and be part of the national zeitgeist for 30 seconds. I've long believed the sponsors which derive the biggest return are those that use the Super Bowl as part of a larger marketing initiative. (Thirty seconds just doesn't seem to last as long as it used to.)

Using the Super Bowl simply to run a new spot for an existing product is an exercise in brand vanity and a colossal waste of money. (Unless you're Bud or Pepsi where the main goal is to excite your bottlers.) However, it is a huge stage upon which to launch a new product or a new positioning.

Today I received an email from Audi that demonstrates this point. Audi offered me a sneak peek at its Super Bowl commercial and asserted that the advertising heralds a new and important chapter in the brand's history:

"Soon, a bold challenge to the tired old myths of luxury will be hitting millions of TV screens across the land. A new viewpoint. A new way of thinking. A new era.
On February 3rd, you will be sent an exclusive preview of the Audi Super Bowl commercial. You will have a chance to witness the moment that will set the nation talking.
The countdown has started. Don't miss the moment of truth.
Audi. Truth in Engineering."

Audi is clued into one of the secrets to a winning Super Bowl sponsorship. While the commercial has to be big and entertaining, what it says about the brand should be even bigger.

Based on the note I received from Audi, this announcement had better be awesome.