The PR of Commercials and Football

Today, the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks will take the field and play in the NFL's 49th annual Super Bowl. The Super Bowl takes on the traits of a holiday for football lovers across the country. We throw parties for friends and family, stocked with wings. fries, and brews. Not to mention, the stigma surrounding Super Bowl commercials and who can create the best one.

Public Relations happens all around the Super Bowl. There are five obvious outlets:

• NFL
• New England Patriots
• Seattle Seahawks
• all brands with placed commericals

Though the commercials of the Super Bowl are the works of advertising, the discussion each individual commercial creates is a PR situation. For instance, GoDaddy intended on releasing a commercial during the Super Bowl, but found that the public opinion was not on their side, and decided to remove the commercial. The ad seemed to be mocking Bud Light for their use of an adorable blonde Labrador in their Super Bowl commercials every year. The ad shows a puppy getting lost after falling off of its owners' truck and finding his way back home, just to have the owners proclaim that they can't wait to sell the pup online thanks to GoDaddy.

Many found the advertisement insensitive, while GoDaddy thought its audience would laugh. The PR decision was to make a statement revoking the commercial and announcing that the public will still see GoDaddy on screen during the big event. GoDaddy left their audience with a little mystery.

Check out the Super Bowl tonight, and expect to see a lot of PR talk about the Half Time Show and advertisments come tomorrow morning!

The Smartest Super Bowl Commercial

It seems the general consensus about the Super Bowl commercials is that they were overall a bit...underwhelming this year. However, the first commercial to air after the big game caused a huge buzz on Twitter. Esurance aired a commercial promoting a contest they are hosting worth $1.5 million! Within seconds of the commercial airing, #EsuranceSave30 was already trending on Twitter and is still trending today worldwide.

Although this commercial created plenty of publicity for Esurance and its contest, it also opened the door for plenty of scamming accounts including @EsuranceSavings, @EsuranceWin, and @MillionEsurance. (For public knowledge, the only account affiliated with the contest is @Esurance.)

Regardless of the potential scams, Esurance's contest promotion via Twitter was a huge success. It seems the most intelligent Super Bowl commercials over the past few years have been incorporating social media. In fact, public relations professionals began using #BrandBowl to discuss the brands' new tactics of utilizing Twitter as opposed to solely relying on the Super Bowl commercials alone. Not only were companies tweeting things related to their commercials, they also tweeted amongst each other.

This new trend shows no sign of slowing down. Integrating social media into their advertisements allows companies to speak directly to their consumers and, in turn, builds a sense of brand loyalty and good relationships.

What do you think about the spike in social media advertising? Share your thoughts below!

The Super Bowl Lineup of Events in NYC

Yes! The Super Bowl is slowly approaching and we have the honor of not only watching the champions of the National and the American football conferences but also seeing the creative and enticing ads brought on by some of the top Brands. And how could I forget the big performance at half time?  This year the line up of events is as adventurous as it gets. If you will be in NYC this weekend, maybe you could tick something off your bucket-list, who knows!

Here are some of the things to do while in NYC:

Block party- Time square will be transformed into a boulevard where there will be concerts and photo ops with the Vince Lombardi trophy. The festival will be between 33rd and 44th streets.

The longest year- The 50 Yard Lounge will be having a food and wine festival at Penn Plaza, which is situated near Madison Square Garden. There will be football legends and great food!

The Super Bowl Gospel Celebration- On January 31st  Pati LaBelle along with some other talented singers will be performing at the Madison Square Garden for the 15th annual Super Bowl Gospel Celebration.

Football at the Met-  Visit the Met Museum for their exhibit of vintage football cards.

Click here for more events.

The Super Bowl and Social Media

If you haven't realized that Superbowl XLVII is just a few days away than I am not sure you are a true American! This year's game is a face off between the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens.

Like most people, I still have a few more things to do in preparation for game day. As I was searching the social media world for new information regarding Sunday's showdown, I stumbled upon this lovely infographic posted on Mashable a few days ago.

If you are an aspiring PR pro and as social media obsessed as I am, be sure to use this information to know which reporters and players to follow, which hastags to use and how to find each team's website. You never know when it'll come in handy!

Even if 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh thinks "Facebooking and the Tweeter" are a waste of time, if you want to become a future public relations professional, it is best to brand yourself and get your social media imprint out there now!

Take a look and let us know what you think:

What’s Bigger than the Super Bowl?

It’s that time of year again- the eagerly anticipated and most watched program on television is just around the corner. There will be jerseys, face painting, greasy food, and of course beer flying off the shelves over the next several days. Getting the hints? Yes, I am in fact talking about Super Bowl XLVII. I have clearly stated the obvious about the upcoming game, but there is much more that goes into the big day than one may realize. 

Like every year, corporations and businesses drop an extraordinary amount of money to advertise during the game. These commercials are no joke, racking in nearly $4 million each for a measly 30 seconds. Because the advertisements have become nearly bigger than the game itself, the Super Bowl is a major platform for PR and marketing pros to catch their target audience.

Lisa Zlotnick, Lippe Taylor‘s VP of media said, “[This] is an opportunity for PR. The media wants to tell this story. The key is to think of creative ways to incorporate your clients into one of the biggest nights of the year and get your brands out there.” PR pros disect the Super Bowl from every angle to determine ways to reach the target audience. They will take the teams playing into account, the psychographics of their fans, they will consider gender, and all age groups watching. The Super Bowl is designed to incorporate something that fits all niches for viewers; competition, humor, music, technological advancements, and graphic design elements. All of these areas of interest are addressed and it's what makes for the vast audience that tunes in. 

The commercials are there to spark creativity, individuality, and of course conversation about the brand. The third-party credibility part follows, and that is when PR steps in. So, who’s going to be watching? I know I’m not missing Beyonce’s performance… 

This guest blog post was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Nicole Leo.