February 2019 - Page 2 of 2

The Super Bowl – the story you didn’t know

February 7, 2019
by Mark

By: Richard Lord, Media & Operations Director, Meta Media

So, the Super Bowl, the world’s biggest televised sporting event, was played this past Sunday with the New England Patriots winning a record equalling 6th title, beating the Los Angeles Rams 13-3 in the lowest scoring game in NFL history. This was Super Bowl LIII which, for the uninitiated (like me – I had to look it up), means it was the 53rd edition of the event that closes out the American NFL season.

Even here at the southern tip of Africa, land of boerewors and rugby, we have heard of the Super Bowl. We might not understand it but I am sure that some of us watched it…all 4 hours of it, even though actual game time is only 60 minutes. Crazy Americans!

But in South Africa, and particularly in our industry, the Super Bowl is synonymous with ads – lots of ads. Very expensive ads. You will have read comments and articles over the years marvelling at just how expensive a single 30 second ad in the Super Bowl costs (upward of $5 million this year by the way). We have all seen the ads…brands like Tide, Volvo, Budweiser, Coca-Cola all spring to mind. And of course, there was the famous 2013 black-out where Oreo won the Super Bowl by reminding us that you could still dunk in the dark!

The Super Bowl is also synonymous with half-time shows…some amazing, some funny, usually controversial – who can forget Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” with Justin Timberlake in Super Bowl XXXVIII (2004), or Left Shark overshadowing Katy Perry in Super Bowl XLIX (2015), and this year a bare-chested Adam Levine and Maroon 5 caused a Tweet storm with accusations of sexism and double standards.

But this article is not about all of that. You can run a Google search and read all of the other articles about the ads, the halftime shows, the advertising rates, and the audiences if you want. I thought that I would rather look at the #StoryBehindTheStory and tell you five things that you probably didn’t know about the Super Bowl. So here goes:

1. Why do they use all of those crazy Roman numerals anyway? It wasn’t always this way. The first four Super Bowls were not numbered at all. The Super Bowl is played at the beginning of the year following the year in which the season actually ends…the 2019 Super Bowl that has just been played is the final game of the 2018 season. The 2019 Super Bowl has nothing to do with the 2019 football season. Confusing right? So to clear up the confusion, a chap by the name of Lamar Hunt decided that instead of using dates to keep track of the Super Bowls they would use numbers instead; and he decided on Roman numerals. Numbers I through IV were added to the first four championship games after the fact.

2. Super Bowl Sunday is the second biggest “eating” day for Americans, after Thanks Giving! 1.25 billion chicken wings are eaten, along with 54.4 million kilograms of avocado (probably in the form of guacamole), 4 million pizzas and 50 million cases of beer – hopefully Bud, otherwise are their Super Bowl ads really working?

3. Ads may cost a whopping $5 million (R67 million) today, but it hasn’t always been that way. The first Super Bowl was played in 1967 and a 30 second ad back then only cost $40,000. As the audiences have grown, unsurprisingly, ad rates have steadily increased. In fact according to Ad Age, in excess of $4.9 billion has been spent on advertising in the Super Bowl over the past 53 years. The TV audience in 1967? 50 million viewers. The audience this past Sunday? 100 million! Ad rates have increased by 12,400% whilst audiences have only increased by 100%.

4. And speaking of prices…what does a ticket to the Super Bowl cost? This year the cheapest ticket you could buy, according to Business Insider, was $2,900. The most expensive ticket was a whopping $93,000! By comparison, the average median income of an American who works a 40 hour week is $44,000 – so some people spent more on a Super Bowl ticket than the average American earns in a year!

5. How much are the performers paid for the half time show? Zero, zip, zilch, nada is the answer. The NFL does not pay performers an appearance fee but, according to the New York Times, they do pay all related travel expenses, body guards, lighting, stage crew. Over the years it has also been rumoured that performers actually pay the NFL to appear – this is not true either.

So now you know the ins and outs of the world’s biggest televised sporting event. The next time you’re standing round the braai with your mates, you can wow and impress them with these lesser known Super Bowl facts.

Stay Curious!

Meta Media DNA

Meta Media is South Africa’s newest media agency, and part of the IPG global network. They don’t just look at the numbers, they dig deeper, they look for the story behind the story. They find the “so what” to give their clients the edge, to give their clients real solutions based on real insights. They are real, they are authentic. They are curious.

The Outdoor Measurement Council is ready to release the latest ROAD Survey

February 5, 2019
by Mark

The OMC (Outdoor Measurement Council) will be releasing its new audience data ROAD this February which covers three years of face to face consumer interviews resulting in a host of insights. ROAD is one of the largest sets of research in the market boasting a rolling sample of a massive 45,000 respondents.

ROAD is committed to delivering rich, accurate insights and discerning audience metrics to the industry. The insights obtained support the continual growth, relevance and role of Out of Home advertising in the media mix. It is a core objective of the OMC to support growth in spend in OOH, and to assist with education around improved mythologies and consumer audience metrics.

“We are so excited to be sharing these latest Out of Home insights with the media and advertising industry, and we’re proud to be introducing our international guest speaker from the UK, James Whitmore, Managing Director of ROUTE,” says OMC’s General Manager Trish Guilford. “James has years of media experience and is a true research specialist in the out of home industry. He will share a host of insights and experiences concerning launching a media currency.

The OMC has many accurate insights and discerning audience metrics to share, including revealing a first to market for Out of Home media planning! This will enhance our offering and allow for media agencies and media owners to plan and deliver audience insights around a host of criteria, resulting in a reduction of planning time in selecting sites, all the while optimizing core planning areas for clients,” she says. “We will also be sharing our industry planning guidelines which will assist all users when evaluating OOH schedules.

We would encourage all marketers, and our media agency and owner partners to attend these presentations where we’ll elaborate on these exciting offerings.”

The Johannesburg road show will take place on the 13^th February at the Bryanston Country Club, with the Cape Town leg being hosted on the 15^th February at The One and Only at Cape Town’s Waterfront. Interested parties can email chirene@owlhurst.com for details.

For more information search #OMCRoad19 or follow @SouthAfricaOMC on Twitter or find OMC Out of Home Measurement Council on Facebook.

To compare or not to compare

February 5, 2019
by Mark

Belinda Kayton, Media Strategist at The MediaShop says that comparative advertising isn’t rude, it could be brilliant!

The ad wasn’t rude, obnoxious or over-the-top. It was actually really quite useful, asking: “Vehicle A has such n such brakes, Vehicle B does not – would you put your family at risk?” I sat up and took note – of course I needed the brakes on Vehicle A and wouldn’t touch Vehicle B!

This was in New York over the festive season. It was a particularly rainy day and so we decided to relax in the hotel for the afternoon, and I watched some TV. After that I made a point of watching more TV so that I could see if there were more comparative ads – and there were loads of them. I loved them. There’s nothing like calling out the weaknesses of other brands that may be in the line of purchase.

And then I started thinking about this a bit more – why don’t we have comparative advertising in South Africa? It’s not banned it’s just heavily condition-laden. It would prove extremely useful to purchasers of Vehicle B to know that they don’t have those special brakes that Vehicle A does! Who knows it might make Vehicle B manufacturers upgrade those not so good brakes. Surely it would only be a good thing?

What is comparative advertising anyway? Basically, it’s when an advert specifically mentions a competitor by name with the purpose of highlighting an inferior service or product.

According to the Law Journal of SA, Comparative Advertising may be unlawful on two grounds namely the common law relating to unlawful competition and infringement of a registered trademark.

So what does this mean? Comparative advertising isn’t permitted if the ad contains untrue and derogatory allegations about a brand. It is also believed that comparative advertising amounts to trademark infringement. Registered trademarks can’t be used without permission, and that is a major reason comparative ads are just about non-existent in South Africa.

In the USA however, comparative advertising has been going strong for over 40 years. About 80% of TV ads and about 30-40% of all ads contain comparative claims in the USA. It was found that customers afford greater importance to comparative claims than to non-comparative ads.

Powerful stuff!

Even ads in the UK show some comparisons, and some go way back:

Useful comparative advertising could prove really powerful, if you look at an example from the USA that compares the cost of trollies and milk:

True comparative advertising can be formidable. The problem is the abuse of this power. It would be fantastic to have factual differences available to the consumer in the form of comparative ads – but as so often happens with ego, the ads go overboard and are of no real use to anyone, except of course as entertainment value.

When investigating comparative advertising in SA, I found the infamous BMW vs. AUDI example. However, this is arguably “tit for tat” advertising and not real comparative advertising in the true sense. Remember these?

Then there was the great Apple vs. Microsoft ad campaign? The great ad war started in 2006, playing on the hip and happening Apple vs. the nerdy Microsoft. Was there a winner?

So – to compare or not to compare? I find this fascinating, and hope that someday we will see helpful, interesting and factual comparative advertising in South Africa. Can it happen?

Sources:
Comparative and International Law Jnl of SA – Trademarks and comparative advertising. (Volume 43 Issue 2).
North-western Journal of International Law & Business: Comparative Advertising in the United States and France (Charlotte J. Romano).

ROOTS 2019 is building to be bigger than ever!

February 4, 2019
by Mark

The 2019 launch of South Africa’s largest urban community quantitative survey, ROOTS, is boasting more areas, more communities and more insights into the survey than ever before. The bumper addition is building momentum and is set to be launched in June this year.

“Due to the increase in scope, TNS researchers are still in field collecting vital data and verifying purchasing and leisure habits across 148 urban areas with a total sample of 26 000 decision makers. ROOTS 2019 will also include new areas added from ADS24 products to expand our pool of insights,” says Gill Randall, Joint CEO SPARK Media. “The building blocks are all coming together as we piece together the total survey.”

“At a local level and compared to ROOTS 2016, our new methodology incorporates both LSM and SEM descriptors, building a more accurate picture of South African communities, as well as a more in depth look at the digital environment,” she says.

Besides the usual datasets of demographics and general info, ROOTS digs deeply into categories like digital integration, activities, entertainment and many retail categories too. The data provides marketers with vital demographic and behavioural information at a local, regional and national level, but it’s the ability to deep-dive and access granular local data that provides the biggest marketing advantages.

As reading is just one facet of a good education, ROOTS 2019 will provide the building blocks for innovative and insightful media plans and marketing strategies. No two communities are the same – ROOTS 2019 will clearly show the differences.

For more on SPARK Media, visit our website and follow us on social media @sparkmediasa.

SPARK Media

Established in 2015, SPARK Media, a division of CTP Ltd, are experts in retail and location based marketing solutions. The company owns and represents a myriad of print and digital products that deliver locally relevant, effective audiences for advertising clients. SPARK Media are Strategic Partners in Audience Research and Knowledge and offer ‘Insights that Ignite’.

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