Episode #74: Super Bowl Ads Part 2, and the Power of Sprinklr Analysis

Tracking social buzz is easy with Sprinklr insights, so we do just that. Then we dig into the details, talking about a few ads that missed the mark (I’m looking at you, flat Matt), and a lemon-filled ad that went the distance. It’s part 2 of our Super Bowl Ad Extravaganza. (If you missed part 1, you can find it here.)

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Okay, here we are, It’s Super Bowl time again on the CXM Experience. And as usual, I am Grad Conn, your host, CXO, chief experience officer for Sprinklr.

I try not to use this to pitch Sprinklr too much, although we’re always talking about things that Sprinklr’s got somewhat of a hand in. But I’m going to do a little Sprinklr pitch today. Nothing too much, but just kind of fluff the feathers a bit. It’s a pretty cool, awesome company to work at. And pretty amazing experience. I’ve been here now three years, but I was Sprinklr’s first customer. So, I’ve been with this group for nearly a decade now. And one of the cool things of working at Sprinklr is that you’ve got access to all this amazing information. And so on February the 8th, we published an article, it’s on the Sprinklr site, in our blog, so just go to blog.sprinklr… and Sprinklr’s no “e” in it, right? Because we couldn’t afford it. Needed to be really cost effective as a startup. So blog.sprinklr.com. And if you go to the blog you’ll find this great article by Rachel Alvarez, who is part of our PR team, a wonderful writer and a wonderful person. And her article is called “The Most Talked About Super Bowl Ads — Sprinklr Insights.”

So again, one of the cool things about Sprinklr, and this has been going on since day one, we had some really compelling stuff during the early days of COVID, we could see where outbreaks were occurring, we can see what’s happening with elections. I’ve usually got a pretty good sense of where an election is going to land based on seeing what’s happening through all the digital chatter that’s occurring around the world. And then of course, Super Bowl. And so, Rachel wrote a really great article. And she was able to highlight some of the ads that were interesting. We’ll hit some of those as we go through these. But she has the top brand posts by total engagement, I’ll tell you what that is in a second. She has the brand with the most engagements on Instagram and Facebook. So, I’ll talk about that as well. And then there’s also a Sprinklr hashtag brand bowl presentation. And this tracks public mentions of Super Bowl ads in real time on X, formerly Twitter.

And so, there’s a summary in the article, and it shows X, formerly Twitter data from around the beginning of the day on February the 7th to about 10pm that night. And only tweets that mentioned a brand and the Super Bowl were included. It’s fairly specific. And you can see who got the most mentions. And then there’s also emoji reactions to the ads. You can see who got the most American flags, who got the most laughing, crying, hearts, and all that kind of stuff. You can see brands with the biggest spike in mentions on X, formerly Twitter, it’s a nice little chart. And the top five most mentioned Super Bowl hashtags.

So, let me do a couple of quick things… you should read the article and should see the visuals because they’re terrific. And there’s a new presentation functionality in Sprinklr which allows you to create essentially real-time PowerPoint slides that are completed with the data coming out of Sprinklr. But with beautiful graphics. It’s a really great way to graphically show what’s going on but with real time updates. Very amazing functionality from Justin Garrity and his team, Ryan Parr and his team. Shout outs to those two who are absolute magicians.

So, the top brand post by total engagement on X, formerly Twitter is: Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew had the most engagement in the Super Bowl. Isn’t that amazing? We’ll talk about that in a bit. And the brand with the most engagements on Instagram and Facebook: Disney+. Alright, Disney+, I love Disney+. 238,000 total engagements on Instagram and 13,000 engagements on Facebook. Those Instagram versus Facebook members, almost 10X, isn’t that amazing. It’s actually 20X. Very interesting.

Anyway, so pretty cool. Congrats to Mountain Dew and Disney+, way to go. The top five most mentioned Super Bowl hashtags, and this is measured from the coin toss at the beginning of the game to the very end of the game. Not surprisingly, #SuperBowl. Also, not super surprisingly, #SBLV, Super Bowl 55. And then #SuperBowlLV. And then go Bucs, #goBucs. And then rounding it out, #theweeknd, spelled without an “e” because he also was a startup and couldn’t afford the “e.” So, let’s talk a little bit about the ads. Check this out. Sprinklr insights are pretty fun and we do them all the time. And you can learn a lot by listening to what other people are talking about.

On today’s section, I wanted to hit a few ads in a row. We ended with the Five to Nine discussion with the Dolly Parton ad, which I thought was potentially flawed but powerful. And then let’s hit some that I’m not going to touch on too long, but they’re just like a little bit like, eeehh. The Cheetos ad, “it wasn’t me.” Just, I don’t know, Ashton Kutcher musically accusing his wife, Mila Kunis, of stealing Cheetos. And Shaggy is defending her by saying it wasn’t me. I don’t know. It felt like it was trying too hard. And maybe this is just me, but wasn’t the energy between Ashton and his wife a little weird? I don’t know, it just didn’t feel like they were super married. Even though apparently, they are.

Then the other one was, John Travolta did the TikTok. It was an ad for Scott’s Miracle Gro, and he’s making a Grease TikTok with his daughter. Kind of like, “woah, that’s John Travolta” was the reaction to the ad. But what did that have to do with the product? And I think one of the things that happens in these Super Bowl ads is that you get something in advertising called irrelevant drama. So, in the Dolly Parton ad, the Squarespace ad, the flaw is: do people know what Squarespace is? And it wasn’t even clear who made the ad. It’s a reasonable criticism. But the theme of the ad, which is when you leave the office, you’re going to pursue your passion. Again, I think that’s a tragic way to live life. But let’s just go with this for a second. When you leave the office, you’re going to pursue your passion, your side gig. And when you’re pursuing your side gig, you’re going to need something with a web presence usually, and use Squarespace to make that happen.

I don’t know their exact creative strategy, but I assume it’s something like: to convince the audience that Squarespace is the best thing to use to host your side gig, or side hustle. And the reason why is that Squarespace requires very little setup time to get a high-quality product. And I’ve actually used Squarespace. Excellent, excellent product. And that would be a true statement. So, the drama has something to do with the product.

However, the drama can have something to do with the product. So, you can be on the mark on the drama and still blow it in the execution. And so we got to talk… I mean, it’s uncomfortable. It’s uncomfortable, I get it. I hate to bring these kinds of things up. But we’ve got to talk about flat Matthew. This is the Doritos 3D ad. Now, Doritos 3D, pretty interesting product idea, which is they take the normally very flat Doritos chip and they’ve puffed it up. So, it’s a three dimensional Doritos chip. Okay, I’ll buy that. Sounds kind of cool. Could be fun. Could be tasty. Nice and light. Sounds great. They had a pretty interesting idea. Simple idea, I guess. The idea is, hey, why doesn’t a two-dimensional person eat the three dimensional Dorito, and… poof, there’s a three dimensional person,

I think that clearly communicates the product uniqueness. I’m not sure I understand the product benefit, but I understand the product uniqueness. I’ll try it. Okay. And then someone said, let’s get Matthew McConaughey. Okay, alright. So, this is where things probably start to go horribly wrong. I don’t know where that came from. But let’s just… I don’t know why you even needed a celebrity. But then, the execution. The look and feel of it, and the distortion of the human features in the face and… it was not a good experience. Stop, stop right now. I don’t know if we’ll see that ad ever again. But that was nasty. But you know, no irrelevant drama.

Amy Schumer, who… I love Amy Schumer. I think she’s amazing. The Hellman’s fairy god mayo. I will also say, you’ve probably heard me wax eloquent about Land O’ Lakes butter. If there’s a close second place competitor, it would be Hellman’s mayonnaise, which I really love. I really love Hellman’s mayonnaise. So, take two things I love very deeply, Like serious fandom for both of these items, and put it together in an ad which generated more dislikes than likes on YouTube and was thoroughly unlikable and unintelligible. And I don’t know what was going on with the fairy godmother and the mayo and the fridge and it was just a bit crazy. But I’m still gonna eat Hellman’s and I’m still gonna watch Amy Schumer.

Let’s wrap with one that I thought was kind of cool. And I thought it was a great ad because it did a nice job of reflecting the year we’ve been through and did it with really nice relevant drama. And did it in an amusing and engaging way that made you want to watch it again. And that is the Bud Light Seltzer Lemonade ad. So, Bud Light is advertising its new lemonade seltzers. And it reflects on the lemon of a year that was 2020. And basically, it’s a bunch of people in situations, like weddings and stuff like that, being bombarded by lemons. And I just thought it was one of those ads where it’s a pretty simple idea. It was a kind of a lemony year, and there’s lemons falling everywhere, and everything’s getting wrecked. Just like this year, everything got kind of wrecked.

For example, in terms of wreckage. My university reunion, or college reunion if you’re thinking in American terms, but this would be in Canada, so it’s my university reunion, was going to be last fall. Very excited for it. I missed the first one. I really wanted to go back for this. I was super, super excited. Obviously got canceled, because as you know, it was in the middle of the pandemic. And they said they were gonna do it again, do it this year in person. So, everyone’s excited, and we’re all exchanging messages. I just got a letter today saying it’s canceled again. And it’s going to be virtual again. Which is very frustrating. So maybe next year, I don’t know. It’ll be like the Bee Movie. Maybe this time, maybe this time, maybe this time, maybe this time, maybe this time.

Anyway, thought Bud Light did a nice job of pulling in the year, making it clear, oh, by the way, we’ve got a lemon seltzer. I’ll give it a shot. I’ll give it a try. Thanks for letting me know. Really clear, really clean communication and messaging.

So that’s our Super Bowl discussion for today. We’ll be back tomorrow with more Sprinklr insights, more discussion about the ads. Might talk about halftime shows again for a minute or two. And while you’re thinking about that, who did the first Super Bowl halftime show of the modern era? You should know the answer if you’re listening on a regular basis. But if you don’t, think about that for a second. What is generally viewed as the kickoff show of the modern era, Super Bowl halftime shows.

And while you’re thinking about that, I’ll be thinking about our next show. For the CXM Experience, I’m Grad Conn, and I’ll see you next time.