CBS during last night's Mercedes-Benz Superdome power outage “more or less stopped showing commercials from Super Bowl advertisers, choosing instead to keep to short breaks with promos for its own programs,” according to Brian Steinberg of AD AGE. Once play proceeded, the net “reran a commercial break containing ads from Bud Light and Subway.” Ad execs said that CBS was concerned the outage had "somehow disrupted viewing of the spots.” Steinberg noted it “isn't immediately clear what recourse advertisers might have, if any.” CBS is “likely contractually obligated to air their commercials at a specific point in the game -- and it continued to do just that as game play resumed.” Coca-Cola was “less concerned about the effect the blackout might have on ratings and more worried about keeping its ad effort trending on social media.” Prior to the lights going out, its ad, identified by the hashtag #CokeChase, was “trending nationally, but was quickly overwhelmed by chatter about the blackout." Meanwhile, some Super Bowl sponsors “used the blackout to further their own ends.” Audi's official Twitter feed posted, "Sending some LEDS to the @MBUSA Superdome right now." The Twitter account of Procter & Gamble's Tide brand wrote, "We can't get your #blackout, but we can get your stains out" (ADAGE.com, 2/3). USA TODAY’s Lindsay Jones writes while the power outage was “a nightmare for some, it presented a golden marketing opportunity for some brands.” Oreo, Buffalo Wild Wings, Tide and Audi were “among the brands that used the break in action to engage with their fans during the power outage.” Audi’s tweet about sending LED lights to the Superdome “received more than 8,000 retweets and was favorited more than 2,000 times” (USA TODAY, 2/4).
COOKIES & CREAM ALWAYS RISES: Oreo during the power outage wrote on its official Twitter account, "Power out? No problem. You can still dunk in the dark." AD AGE’s Ives & Parekh noted the tweet was “retweeted 10,000 times within one hour.” 360i President Sarah Hofstetter, whose company is Oreo’s digital agency of record, said the graphic used for the brand's tweet was "designed, captioned and approved within minutes." All the decisions were “made in real time quickly because marketers and agency members were sitting together at a ‘mission control’ center, or a social-media war room of sorts, at the agency's headquarters in the TriBeCa neighborhood of Manhattan.” The agency acknowledged that it was “able to make decisions so quickly because the Mondelez-owned cookie brand was a broadcaster advertiser in the Super Bowl, and so was closely monitoring chatter and interaction with consumers on all social media channels” (ADAGE.com, 2/3). FOXSPORTS.com’s Nancy Gay writes Oreo's parent company deserves “credit for quickly adjusting and capitalizing on what became a social media marketing dream"(FOXSPORTS.com, 2/4).
