Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - Do Super Bowl Ads Work on You?

Episode Date: February 9, 2021

In this episode on The Radcast, host Ryan Alford is joined by guest Tyler Lewis, the Director of Client Solutions with Neuro-Insight. This is a loaded episode discussing Super Bowl ads and why neurology is such an important part of the marketing and advertising process.During the episode, guest Tyler Lewis shares with Ryan, Josh Hill, and Mike Weston, how people process information through neuro-analytics. This is a two part episode. Expect the second part next week when Tyler joins us again, dissecting the data from the Super Bowl ads, and if they were effective or not.If you enjoyed this episode of The Radcast, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and share the word if you love what we discuss, so we can keep giving you the strategies to achieve radical marketing results! You can follow us on Instagram @the.rad.cast | @radical_results | @ryanalford |Follow Tyler Lewis and Neuro-Insight at www.neuro-insight.com | or on Twitter @neuro_insight If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. I am joined for a special edition. I might say four guests and one. Four and one here on the Radcast.

We're bringing all the heat today. You know, it's Super Bowl time. Super Bowl just passed, and we thought no better time to kind of talk about the impact. of the Super Bowl and specifically the impact of neuro in marketing. We're going to get brainy today specifically. I'm joined by Tyler Lewis here. He is the director of client solutions.

Am I getting it right, Tyler? I'm going to really think through that here on a Monday. The Monday after the Super Bowl. And it's basically a blanketed term for arbiter of everything. Yes. I can appreciate those running a company. I don't ever know. I kid.

I'll also join by Mike Weston, our creative director, and Mr. Josh Hill, our digital marketing manager, guru, extraordinary. The guy. Yeah. Ad guy. Ad guy, digital media guy. But, yeah, I joke all the time. We struggle with titles as well because, you know,

how many hats do I need you to wear? Exactly. There's not enough titles. appropriate there, but neuro-insight company, you know, Tyler, let's start there. Like I want, let's explain a little bit

about what you do, what neuro-insight does. Let's knock that out because I think it's cool. It's really interesting what you guys are doing. Let's start there and then we can kind of get into some of it on the Super Bowl. 100% appreciate that. No, so Neuroinsight is a company that specializes in the art of

applying neuroscience to understanding how people respond to creative or content. And the entire crux of what we do is based off of the fact that whenever we watch something or interact with anything, there's two different types of processing that happens of content, right? You have explicit processing of things that you can actually like talk to or respond to being potentially like, you know, do you remember this? Do you like this? Do you like that? Or do you dislike something. And then there's implicit processing, which is, which happens in the subconscious. And the subconscious is makes up 90% of our human brain processing. And it dictates how we

respond to things or how we act on things later on. So we're able to look at, you know, how the brain is actually responding to things in real time to understand whether or not we're able to communicate effectively the messages that we're trying to communicate to people. And naturally, people will remember things that are memorable or that are emotionally engaging, but it's important for us to use neuro-based methodologies to understand how people are actually responding to content. So our company measures literally brain response with these headcaps of how people's brains are responding, content in real time instead of asking people questions on the back end.

This is the future. Like, it's like when I, coming up through marketing, it was like, this is what, you know, I can like see it like in a, like here's what we might do one day. You know, like you see flying cars and like other things. It's like one day we're going to be able to put something on your head and know how you're thinking about it. Like this is it, isn't it? Yep, absolutely.

I remember I kind of misqualitative focus groups because, you know, the snacks were really, Yeah. And Nielsen buttons. What happened to Nielsen buttons? I mean, can people eat while they have their brain pad on, their brain cap? Qualitative focus groups are very entertaining, but understanding how people are truly processing information is, you know, what we're specializing in. Like, especially, again, because we're going to get a lot of responses of people telling

you in a qualitative focus group, what they think you want to hear. in a focus group or understanding of like you know what they think they want to know but at the same time the subconscious is so much deeper in in driving our future action which is why we exist as a company well if you ask anyone does advertising work on you they all say that those ads don't work on me but i did like that commercial yeah that's usually what you hear josh what's your perspective on all this. Oh man. Adds work on me. I would, there was a time I definitely was like, absolutely not. But now I'm like working in it in the space, I'm like using the algorithm and stuff. And now I'm like, you know what? I'm going to purposely like trigger my algorithms to show me things so I can buy things.

I was like I want it to work on me. So as we transition like we wanted to bring Tyler on because, you know, we're going to have a follow up. This is a two part episode. Tyler's team is Analy's a lot of the Super Bowl ads and the ones that supposedly ranked high. We're going to find out if they really rank high on our follow-up episode next week. So one and two, but I do want to just get into a little bit of discussing what we thought of the big game. I don't think we're going to get marked by the Super Bowl. I'm a joke pre-episode. Can we talk about the Super Bowl?

The trademark or whatever? I think this is a non-paid podcast. Yeah, so I think we're good. So we can say Super Bowl? We can say Super Bowl. It's not the big game. The Super Bowl was what I called my bowl of guacamole. Yeah.

Yes, yes, yes. But what was everybody's, I'll start with you, Tyler. I mean, what was your impression of, hey, look, we're the radcast. We can talk about whatever the hell we want, like both the game itself and the ads. Look, I'll tell you what. I think I'm very, I'm very biased in this. response but I was very happy that Tom Brady was able to pull off what he did at the age of 43. It was a fairly boring game overall.

I think the game was like done after the first half, but overall like was very pumped to see that Tom Brady was able to pull it off. Being from Michigan, have a lot of strong ties to Tom Brady and the University of Michigan in general. So, you know, I was very happy. It was very cool to see and witness. greatness live. You know what I mean? Like this is something that we will never see again in our lifetime. So from a game perspective, great.

From an advertising perspective, I think people were trying to, and trying too hard to be safe. You know what I mean? I think that safety was replicated in the number of celebrities that we saw in the advertisements and the amount of like slapstick comedy that was also presented. Because I think we've got. to a point, especially comparing it to like past Super Bowls, we've gone to a point where everyone is trying to play it very, very safe. Brands are trying to play it very safe. That's the

reason why we haven't seen the amount of like Super Bowl ads being bought as quickly as they used to in the past years. For example, last year, the Super Bowl was sold out in November. CBS didn't sell out their Super Bowl ads until the week before the Super Bowl. So brands are playing it very, very, very, very safe. And they didn't take as many risks as they used to. And that being in taking social stances or taking stances in general on their own, like, grand ideology. People were just trying to make jokes and be entertaining.

Mike, what do you think? I wonder how much of that. I agree. Absolutely. I think it was one of the lamest years in a long time. But I got to say, I got to ask all of us. how much of that had to do with this 2020, this crap hole of a year that we just came out of.

Sure. Right? And I thought one of the best spots made light of that in the Bud Light Seltzer. Lemons. When life deals with lemons, you make lemonade. Brilliant. Absolutely. I love that.

But I think a lot of what we saw as a result of the year that we just came out of. Yeah. And continues, frankly. Gosh, how did you feel overall? I mean, the game was kind of boring. I kind of zoned out of the football game again after halftime. I was like, yeah, this game's over.

The boy Patrick's not having fun anymore. His line couldn't defend against a group of senior citizens. Definitely not. It was horrible. The whole game. I think all four of us could have gotten through that line. I think so. They were pathetic.

I will say watching Patrick, I mean, he was like, horizontal, you know, whole full body. He threw the ball 40. I'm like, I mean, and the guy dropped it. Like, I was like, how do you get, how do you throw from that angle? His face after that was, was, was very telling. That's the, and Patrick's like, he's the nicest guy.

Like, and that was the most eat shit look you'll ever see out of him. Like, what the hell? Feel for the guy, man. He was trying to do it all on his own. Yeah. It just can't. But I mean, yeah, but like ads wise, I mean, I've, I've, It was not surprised by, like, the amount of, like, nostalgia,

but maybe, I guess the extent of the nostalgia push was, like, a little surprising. And it just seemed everyone's kind of trying to do the whole, like, grab celebs with built-in audiences. So I was surprised by the amount of social media influencers or, like, celebs. I think culturally we're finally, like, recognizing YouTubers and, like, TikTokers and stuff as, like, actual celebrities in the, like, TV world, which is, like, a lot of times a YouTuber is going to be, far more, like, popular than, like, a TV actor or movie actor or stuff like that.

So that was, that was interesting from my perspective, because a lot of them kind of had to follow up, like, social media tactics of, like, they gave David, they gave David Dobrick the, like, like, Mountain Dew Car, like, so that was kind of funning it in at the same time of, like, yeah, remember the, remember when things were good back in the day of these old ads? Right. We're not going to make any new ones. We're not going to do anything to make things new or exciting or innovative. But let's just get some memories in. Yeah. I thought it was, man, overall. We talked a little pre-upset about that.

But it felt safe. It felt like no one really knew what tone to take. So to Tyler's point, they defaulted to humor, which is never a bad place. I mean, we all want to be entertained, which is good. but it felt it just felt flat there were highlights and we'll get into some of our favorites here shortly but it just fell flat for me and I don't know if it was a combination of the games

and the ads but I just it did make me wonder about the strategies of where you fall and I guess I don't know how much you can dictate I know you can choose quarters and things like that but depending on the spot that you became before or after I think can sometimes dictate your

success because I found myself like when a really shitty ad would run like one that I wasn't interested in I kind of tuned out and then I halfway didn't pay attention to one that was actually pretty good the next one then you know I'd start okay it gets my attention I don't know my brain would probably tell you something Tyler I don't know absolutely no well 100% well that's something we've done a lot of research on too is coming from the perspective of understanding context context is so important in how people respond to things because there's flow, right? If I show you the same advertisement on Facebook versus TV,

you're going to have a very different response to it, right? And the same thing applies to an emotional game like the Super Bowl where, you know, you have various like ebbs and flows and some advertisers are going to be lucky enough to be behind like some big play or touchdown that's going to impact their brand in a certain way. Whereas like if the game gets boring, you know, people are going to tune out and have a very different response.

And this is all dictated by what is influencing how we're responding to things in real time. It's almost like, you know, you asked me about neuroscience on a beach versus neuroscience, like, in this context, we're going to have very different responses to it. Like, if we're on the beach, you're like, what the fact? Why do you want to talk to me? I don't want to, I don't need you around. But if we're in this context, you're like more engaged, right? So, you know, that has a massive impact on how people are responding as well.

And I think the fact that the game was out of hand by the time we got to halfway through the second quarter, everybody else who had spent $5.5 million on their advertisements beyond the second quarter, we're screwed over. Yeah. Yeah. But that's always been true, too. I think about, you know, one of my favorite ads, and I'm incredibly biased because I'm a huge Springsteen fan was you know, the spot that, you know, he was in for Jeep.

And it came in the fourth quarter after a really lousy game. And I was thinking, how many people are going to react to this? Because they didn't see it. Yeah. At that point, they'd lost interest in the game and they moved on. Well, I saw where, you know, they did the top five searched. And the Jeep ad, I think, was two or three in searches. But I think it's because nobody saw it because they weren't watching the game at that.

point. And it was Springsteen, right? Yeah, with that too. And my only issue, it felt contrived to me. Like, I was like at the time, like, it was like trying to make a point to make a point or something, trying to be somewhat in the throes of understanding how people feel and wanting to bring people to get. I don't know. It just became contrived to me. I don't know. I like Adwigs take because Adwijk would set it, like it just kind of rang hollow. Yeah, in a weird way. Like it was so deep, it was hollow. Or trying to be deep. They're looking at the like fulfillment.

Like, oh, I guess someone needs to do a come together like ad. I guess we'll do that one. It's like. Well, it's interesting because because donor wrote that spot. Yeah. And the head of Jeep marketing had been trying to sell. He's a huge Springsteen fan, I guess, to John Landau, Springsteen's producer for a long time.

And Bruce finally bit on it and loved it. And it was really well written. It was a smart idea. The middle of the country. But yeah, you're right. It's the Super Bowl. It's commercials. God as much as I adorn worship Bruce Springsteen.

It was kind of disingenuous. Yeah. You know? They didn't overtly try and sell Jeep. And they did sign off, you know, the reunited states of America. But it was a Jeep spot. Yeah. Right.

And I don't mind seriousness. You know, I don't mind. Like, my favorite. spot last year was the Google spot doing Google Assistant in the old band, giving him himself the reminders, Loretta. That's my, I thought that was the best ad

about like a million miles last year. And it wasn't funny, but it was so I mean, I was like crying in my seat. I'm in the middle of this, like, if you can move that emotion in me when I'm watching a football game, I'm munching on naches. I got barbecue sauce all over my face. You know, like I'm laughed through four

other commercials. And then I'm like tearing up in 30 seconds, you've done your job. Yeah, the one spot that came close, I thought, but I think it got caught up. Toyota? Yes, absolutely. Toyota, yeah, absolutely. That was nice. I was nice. I have to confess, though, I saw the preview of it last week. Oh, yeah. I thought it was a wonderful story. I mean, the art direction was wonderful, but I wonder how many people it was really lost on.

Right. You know, well, I think Toyota did a good job, but they were able to solidify that spot early in the game before it got out of the game. And this was a very unique Super Bowl, too, because not only do we have this situation where, you know, we have unique times that people are going to talk about within their advertising. This is the first Super Bowl. When we're talking about context, this is the first Super Bowl where a lot of people can't get together like they used to. Right. Back in the day, when we're consulting on Super Bowl ads, it was all about, like, look, you've got to tell a visual story. you got to tell something that doesn't require audio because 90% of the time people are going to be at a party, probably drinking, and probably, you know, just with a bunch of friends and you're going to be drowned out. This is the first time that attention was very important.

And I think the Super Bowl advertising in this context actually failed at taking advantage of that opportunity to have people's attention. Because you can actually like take a message and run with it. I think the best, the best version of that was like some of the social stuff that happened on the side. And I think that was the coolest part of the Super Bowl that I want to talk about as well. You know, not the ads themselves, not the $5.5 million that say Anheiserbush would pay for a 30 second spot. But it's the social networking that the Twitter ads that were released, like during this time that people were retweeting and talking about because people had more time to go. on Twitter. You had more time to go on social.

And those were the things that were trending on Twitter last night was the things that were social-based, things that people weren't served during the Super Bowl itself. Yeah. And that's a great point about attention because with COVID, you still didn't, you had fewer probably, sure there are some idiots out there like on top of each other. But most reasonable people were, you know, at smaller gatherings or home. Right. And like me, I mean, even I'm in the ad business, and I'm normally paying way more attention probably to the commercials than the average person beyond just the humor of it or whatever the interest level would be.

I definitely was in a more, because I wasn't at a party. I wasn't like, I was definitely, it's a great insight. And I think it even makes me actually think they failed more. I don't know. Like they had a moment in time to do something bold. You know, and I don't even, that's where I thought, like, the Jeep was, like, trying to be bold. Like, it was just, like, trying too hard or something. Like, that was what it was.

But, yeah, missed opportunities. But I know, I know, Josh, you picked up on some of the social stuff. Yeah, I mean, I was, I mean, as soon as the game was getting boring, I was spending, I was watching the commercials, but during the game, I was scrolling through TikTok. And I saw Tide had a bunch of kind of, like, 200 to, like, 2 million follower, like, channels on TikTok, like they made their own hoodie with their own face on it. And they were getting that dirty and like talking about it. I think they have probably like 10 or 15 like different influencers use that.

And I saw like David Doberk had the, the Mountain Dew Car, he gave it away to one of his buddies. And like that's like a guaranteed like five million extra impressions right there. And then people are going to be sharing that too. Like I think it's the extensions and like the Instagram ads of like clips of the ads that you recognize. it when you see it on the TV. I think it just helps reinforce, but it's definitely interesting. Well, I mean, if you look at, I said this morning in preparation too, was just looking at some of the winners of the Super Bowl.

And the winners of the Super Bowl were not people who paid money to advertise in the Super Bowl. The winners of the Super Bowl were people who ran social campaigns, you know, or didn't even, like, bother to, like, very, very legacy Super Bowl advertising. Super Bowl advertisers who decided not to advertise and just focused on social like Budweiser, you know, had more of an impact on people's mindset about their brand than the advertisers themselves. Yeah. Totally.

Well, when an ad's not an ad. Yeah. Right. Exactly. I mean, we've seen that before of people who, I mean, they did as commercials too, but like when they went around the Super Bowl but didn't actually like the old spice, like look at your man, now look at you. Like, now look back at your man.

Like, that was not a Super Bowl ad. It was, it ran before Super Bowl and it ran after. But a lot of people remember as that because it was there. And then Instagram and YouTube was really heavy with them, too. I think capturing that, like, capturing that second screen of, like, what's in your hand during the commercials or during the boring parts of the game, like, again, if you're at a party or if you're home alone, like, you're going to be on your phone way more often. Either way.

What do you think? What did everybody think of the Reddit execution? The five second ad. It was, I think it was, so we, I think it was great. I think they did a really good job of disrupting because we're sitting here talking about it right now. That means like it had a pretty, pretty awesome impact. And the timing was perfect too. And when we're talking about timing and Reddit in general, how about the Robin Hood ad?

Yeah. Which was, which was, which the Robin Hood ad was the second to line. last on the ad meter, right? You know, given the recent context of what Robin Hood has influence with GameStop, right? Right. What do we think about that? I thought they either. I liked that they stayed in in a way, but I hope that they were going to not be tone-deaf and they were because they didn't change it.

I think that was the spot they were going to run two months ago. It was no, it was in the can. And I would have done something more organic. I would have either apologized or like, you know, I don't know, but you can't fucking call yourself Robin Hood and be, and be like blocking, you know, like, it's like the complete antithesis of what you've positioned yourself. Right. Yeah, we're trickle-down trading. And instead of like just hoping that maybe not enough people know about you and running a general awareness brand spot about how your Robin Hood is just bullshit. Yeah, they were tone deaf.

I think one of the issues too is like Robin Hood would have had to screenlock that pre the issue that we ran into so they would have had a screen lock that with CBS last week so one of the things that we're saying too is like you know they probably had this ad bought already then you know found themselves in a bowl of shit and you know just like reacted in the best way possible but you know at the same time like they're reacting action was not as positive as they could have you know what honestly you not to belabor springsteen and g but they just shot that spot last week yeah yeah you know Robin hook had turned around done something really really simple yeah very short period of time yeah get I would have you need to make a gesture

or do something and and just to put your head in the sand and act like it didn't happen you know which is essentially what they did like we live in a day and age where you know and I built an agency around it about this notion of real time, the ability to impact. And, you know, the fact that, and in TV now, like you said, the Jeep, they recorded, they did it last week. Like, that capability is here. Like, you can do these things and turn these things around and leverage the insights, because this is what's happening is we now have the power to act upon these things

that are happening so quickly. And to just not take advantage of that just felt like a complete lost opportunity. I think that's a good point, Ryan. When we talk about just reactivity and ability to react on these things in general is like I don't want to make it way too massive about TV as a dying breed

and you guys do a really good job of taking advantage of social and taking advantage of being really incredible social marketers on Instagram on TikTok, et cetera, et cetera, you know, as you think about TV and how we advertise on TV, one, we're losing viewership,

two, you lose your reactivity. On social, you can react immediately, right? And, you know, something that happens within, you know, the week that you have to be the Super Bowl at, like into the Super Bowl, is going to make a massive impact on, like, how people respond to you. And, like, the example of this is Robin Hood in general.

It's like they had to like lock their ad last week, had a very poor response to it. Whereas on social, you can be very more dynamic in the way you ever, and you take advantage of the times because we're in a point in time where we're adapting every single day to the news that we see. And, you know, we start to think about, and this is one thing too, that we have to address is, is the Super Bowl even worth it anymore? You know what I mean? Like we may have reach, but do we have actual effectiveness?

And do we do we actually see ROI on this? Yeah, I think my I did an early, Josh and I did an episode and I effectively called mass marketing dead. So I think everyone, everyone that listens to Radcast, no, where I stand on this, you know. I can't know that. It was a humble plug. But no, it's like, but that's what. Again, the reach is incredible and the awareness you can get. I still think there's value.

I don't know if the ROI pays off, but you get 10 billion people. I mean, I don't know what the numbers exactly are. Yeah, so last night I saw projections of 148 million. Last year was 98.4 million. So, I mean, you get that you get that reach, but again, you know. But you got to use it. I think it's still, I think it just goes back more to the execution. Like, it's like it's not enough to just have that.

reach and throw something up there safe or otherwise. And I mean, as much as I hate it, and I'm sure everyone did, but the Oatley thing with the guy singing, which I think was stupid and bad on purpose, you know, but like it, I at least respected it for trying to do something different, you know, in its own way. As much as I hated it. I was about to bring that up. But it's like finally someone is like, it's like, I was so refreshing because like finally someone is being like, yeah, we're not going to be for everyone.

It's sort of like my favorite, like, liquid death water company. They sell water and they call themselves liquid death and it's got a skull on the can. And it's just like, yeah, they're not trying to appeal to everyone. And it's like, yes. I've respected that more than the Jeep spot. Yeah. So what does that tell you? I mean, you're a Republican.

I mean, the only ad, too, was just such a, I mean, that was also one of the worst rated ads. and I think when we think about it, it's like, why was that? But also is being bad also kind of okay for your brand? Yeah, what I mean? Yes, we're talking about it. Exactly, 100%. I mean, if we go back to some of the work that we've done with Pepsi, I know that, you know, for example, we tested the Kendall Jenner ad after they had the big blowup.

But one of the things is that it were if we think about, out politics as well. It's like, you know, is negative publicity bad publicity or is it just publicity? Right? Because the things that we're not going to talk about are the things that are going to be ranked between number five and number 45 in the ad meter. Things we're going to talk about are ranked, you know, 65 and below or one through five. Right.

Yeah. And, you know, I think, you know, Oatley being one of them is like maybe was it so bad that it was good? was it a creative, like, was it actually maybe more effective because it was bad? Yeah. Is the thing that I'm looking forward to looking into next week? I'm looking forward to it too. And if I was a betting man, I bet you it tests neuroly wear.

Well, if that's, if I'm phrasing that correctly, Tyler, with my brain analytics. I mean, you're going to notice, I would, I'd be noticing the bottles in the store like way sooner now. Oh yeah, you're good to see it. Like, I think it elevated their brand awareness, and it was terrible. But I think they were, I think it was brilliant. I think they knew exactly. They knew it was bad. Part of me, when I first saw it, I was like, oh, God, this guy was the CEO and wanted

to be in his own spot. And then I watched it a little longer, and I'm like, they know exactly what they're doing right here. They know it's bad, but they want it to be bad. Well, I know, I know the little super spreader I was at, everyone kind of stopped in. what the but there was silence finally it ended and it ended it's like

which I think that's my that's my favorite kind of humor is like yeah there's the self-aware like Wayne's world humor or whatever but like I feel like the true humor is where people are like what is happening right now but maybe my brain's broken can you scan that Tyler is that a thing we can we can save you the time and money it is broken Yeah.

But I think one thing, one thing to kind of address, there's a couple things, but the one thing to address, like, first and foremost, like, Rocket Mortgage for the first time was able to get one and two on the ad meter, which is incredibly, like, you know, you've never seen that on the ad meter. And this is how brands think about the Super Bowl as well. It's like from the clients we've worked with, they want to win the ad meter. And the ad meter is like such a, forgive my language bullshit. like understanding of how things like how people respond to things it's just like do you like it or do you not like it at the end of the day people are not going to remember rocket mortgage Tracy Morgan is going to get most of the you know like attraction on this like he's yeah exactly like he's the one who's getting followers today rocket mortgage is not getting anybody new

who's going to like get rocket mortgage today you know um so so so What I heard talking about one and two on the Ad Meter, so I was watching one of the news shows this morning. Full disclosure, I do watch television. And they were talking about how they were using Rocket Mortgage, effectively used other influencers, other people that are Rocket Mortgage Influencers, Ricky Fowler, to encourage all their millions of followers to go to AdMeter and vote for the Tracy Morgan ads. Right. Sure, exactly. And that's gaming the system. And that's how people are also going to utilize this as, you know, a win for them.

But again, that's what comes back to what we do is like at the end of the day, if we're using influencers to vote for something, if we're using celebrities to actually like, you know, try to communicate some sort of, some sort of like emotional, like, you know, responds to the celebrity is going to be the person who actually in drives impact. What we, what we can do as a neuroscience company, understanding how people respond to information is if you don't, if you don't communicate your brand, then you're completely, you know, you're completely screwed. Right. Yep. Exactly. You've got the moment in time there. Like, just making something that's funny and throwing your logo at the end, I just don't think

you're getting it done. Right. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that was what we saw and what we consistently see in Super Bowl Creative is the inability to integrate a brand into your advertising to make your brand affable and relatable. You know what I mean? I think one of the best examples of this that I've seen in my work is, you know, last year there was a Colgate ad with Luke Wilson. And he was talking about how he had really bad. breath and that was the whole joke but what what people do is they try to create a story they try to create a film in 30 to 60 seconds and then throw their brain at the end but at that point people are already turned up people are already like okay I got the story I'm done but I got I got

I got to take issue with that for just a moment and granted I've been in this business a long long time and I've had to forget everything I knew over the last 25 years just to just to immerse myself in digital. But I still think people want to be entertained, want to be sucked in. And that's, I always, I was taught and I believe that you need to entertain people or inform people, draw them in, suck them in.

I think that Colgate spot was brilliant because I watched it all the way to the bloody ankles. It was interesting. It was fun. It was entertaining. And rules and YouTube about, you've got to get your name in there in the first five seconds and blah. I think,

That's the way to turn people off. Right. No, I agree with the 100%. So there's two things there. And coming from our perspective as well is I hear this all the time too. Because a lot of the insights that we deliver as a company is how do we optimize our advertising? A lot of the times it's all about taking advantage of the most impactful scenes in that, which is not dictated by timing.

It's not going to be the first five seconds or the last five seconds. not like the middle 15, whatever it may be. You have to find those scenes that people engage with and throw your brain on top of that. But the problem that we deal with as an industry is humans have become accustomed to being very turned off by advertising. We don't want to be, like the normal consumer, like we're all advertising folks.

We love advertising. It's fun for us. But, you know, like everybody else doesn't love that at all. So what we see is we have this thing called conceptual closure where the last 50 years of advertising, if not more, has been very formulaic. It's 27 seconds of advertising or a story. And then you have three seconds of branding. The brain has been conditioned to shut off right before branding.

And people will just like not. remember what's going on, right? You have to take advantage of those moments and those elements that are very impactful. That allows you to put your brand in the best light. And the formula for advertising needs to change. And that's the thing that we're trying to get to. We need to change because when you look at data, for example, like a very simple example of this as well is when people like,

there have been many eye tracking studies done when people go on to Google. when people go on to Google, they're going to immediately jump to the fourth or fifth search result because they know the first four or five. Our ads. I do that. And this is how we change this. And we got to be better at brand integration.

We got to be better telling a story about our brands. I'm sure you can use celebrities, but don't make sure that your celebrities are not taking from your brand itself. make sure that they're not attentioned vampires. And you have to tell a very positive story about your brand that relates to your brand. You can make a sweet, cute, viral video that will be fine and, like, you know, people will, like, engage with it. And, like, you might be lucky if your brand is integrated with it.

But as a brand itself, as, you know, we've changed neurologically as well through one COVID, through two, uh, quarantines, through three, like, you know, over the years being condition of this stuff, you have to be able to tell a story that consumers can engage with because the biggest consumer in the world, the consumers that are going to be able to drive some sort of like response are the people who are going to be like feel like it's a personal thing to them. And that's why Facebook advertising is really good. That's why Instagram advertising is really good is because it's embedded within a very personal space. And that's how we can like fix TV advertising is like by driving some sort of personal connection.

But unfortunately, you know, the old, the worst sold, a lot of the big TV ads that we see are going to be, um, dictated by the old, you know, Don Draper like average, like, not that old. Yeah. The old Don Draper like aesthetic though, which is like, I'm going to pay five million dollars to have this like really great celebrity. But that's not going to convert anything. It's only going to get Drake more listens on Spotify. It's not going to make sure that you are selling State Farm.

You know what I mean? I thought we saw it a little bit. It was the only thing I liked about the Wayne's World spot. But I thought someone was going to be smart enough to do a TikTok ad for the ad. Like using everything that is a TikTok video, a TikTok video, not ad, me, but just that whole notion, edited, used, done as TikTok, I think it would have performed well. And I think, because again, the tension spans

there, and obviously with the brand integrated. I think that's the biggest issue is, yeah, it's great and all, like the same thing with Rocket Mortgage, like it was fun and it definitely, they were trying to relate it to the brand and I get it, there was almost whatever it was, you know, is it almost a parachute or whatever. trade Tracy mortgage Tracy mortgage

Yeah But it's like Integrating the brand In a way that keeps interest And holds interest But drives engagement And I think that's where it failed the most Like I just

I feel like there was just this Opportunity loss And I think that's Kind of like the game itself So it was like The promise that it was supposed to be So you know You're right Tyler

On a couple of counts So, yes, those spots, I think we're going to all agree with the exception of maybe Reddit, right? We're formulaic. 25 seconds, 45 seconds, 55 seconds, 35 seconds, 3 to 5 seconds of branding. Yeah. Right. The other thing we always talk about, and which I still think is effective, is reach and frequency. Yeah.

Right. And a lot of these ads are one-offs. You're never really going to see them again unless it's, you know, the 20-greatest Super Bowl spots of all time. You know, Friday before the big game. So, you know, what social media and this brave new world gives us the ability to take that stuff and to showcase it on TikTok and Instagram and, you know, get Tracy Morgan to post. I mean, there's there's so many venues now to continue the campaign rather than just one and done. Yeah. But like think of last thing I'll say like real fast hour.

Like think about like two of my first. favorite Budweiser spots have ever. Bud, the frogs. They're using the name of the brand. The frogs going, bud. And then the Bud Bowl with the bottles, with the guy calling the announcer of the game, the bottles are playing football against each other.

It's like you're using the product, you're bringing it in. I know that's like straight line, but they were entertaining. Yeah, you know. So we were having a, we were having a conversation because we've got a lot of very young people working here. And I asked me,

if they know what what the spot was that kind of kicked off this this the Super Bowl Sunday commercial you know gala do you remember what it was what spot it was so so Super Bowl Sunday had its had its start this this fascination with watching not just you know watching it not just for the game but also for the commercials yep right what was the iconic brand What was the famous spot that kind of kicked this whole thing? I think the Budweiser Clydesdales, no? No. I guess that same thing, Tyler. Mike did this to me. I guess the exact same thing.

Yeah. And it was, it was, high five. Ninety-four. Apple. Oh, yes. Absolutely. Well, I mean, I'm dressed like Steve Jobs today.

Yeah, right. Is that a turtleneck you have on? I mean, Shiat Day. Shiat Day created, Ridley Scott, directed it. It was a freaking epic. Yes. You know, and your jaw drop. I'm an ad for, you know, ad nerd, my jaw dropping.

And it was phenomenal. And it's still a phenomenal spot. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, also the same thing goes. I think it's a really good point, too. It's like some of these, some of these iconic, you know, just things that people, people, and brands start to, you know, own. For example, Budweiser, this was the first year that they did not.

advertised in the Super Bowl, which, you know, goes back to the initial point that we're talking about, which is like, you know, this is a unique Super Bowl where, like, ads didn't sell out until the week before, right? So Sam Adams did a regional spot in Boston and New York, like in the Northeast, using the Clinesdale's and showing the Clinesdale's, like, running away from their, they're, like, you know, I don't know. Yeah, exactly. But here's the thing. It didn't do shit for Sam Adams, to be honest. I think it really does a lot for Budweiser as a brand. And it shows how influential Budweiser is.

Like the fact that Budweiser had a ton of news, like every, like I was looking at this like before the Super Bowl too. It's like it wasn't just ad age and ad week that we're talking about Budweiser not advertising for the first time in years, in over 20 years. it was the Detroit News. It was the New York Times. It was like the Boston Globe. It was the Wall Street Journal.

All talking about the fact that Budweiser wasn't advertising, that was very incredible. And that goes to take in. It's like, you know, the amount of money that people have like obviously paid for advertising to the Super Bowl is great, obviously. But, you know, social and, you know, I'd access. of like, you know, investing money elsewhere, like Budweiser invested their money into, you know, into, what was it, COVID research or something like that, right? Vaccinations, right? So it's like, that is what's going to make a bigger impact, especially in a year like this.

And that's why you have so many brands that have backed out as well. But it was funny. We had our team meeting this morning, and I joke to not have been in the Super Bowl between the, the seltzers and the Clydesdells being shown on Sam Adams, like they sure as hell felt like they were in the Super Bowl, Budweiser. Yeah, he's really good. They had the logo flash. And the PR, I will say, I told, I joked someone last week,

the impressions, if there was anything that could match, the impressions they would have gotten buying the Super Bowl, this PR play is probably superseding it. For all the press coverage, you just talked about Tyler. It's got to be in the hundreds of millions of impressions, the PR they've gotten from it. That's part of the brand new world of advertising. Yeah.

Absolutely. And then at the end of the day, too, it's like, what is an impression? Yeah. Does an impression actually make an impression, which is again, like the whole crux of what we do too. It's like to bring it back to your own instance. It's like, you know, sure, I can blast past this like post on Instagram or on TikTok. But what we've seen is, you know, is that actually going to drive some sort of memory encoding response? because half the time when I'm on TikTok or on Instagram or when any of us are,

we're just kind of like brain dead and mindless. Like what is the best, what's the best platform for us too? Yeah, exactly. So as we're kind of rounding out here with this episode, any, I'll kind of roundtable this one as well, any kind of final thoughts on, you know, where we think, you know, Super Bowl ads in general, their impact. We've got into that a little bit,

but I'll kind of roundtable. Any final thoughts, Josh? Start with you. I definitely could see it being a bigger trend of bringing in more YouTube celebrities and more, I guess, social media people. I think people are still sleeping on how big YouTube is. It's like the second most trafficked website, period. There's just, like, I think there's huge celebrities, people with built-in audiences who spend hundreds of dollars a month on merch. for a single human, you tie them in a brand, they're going to buy from that brand.

They all have rich parents and stuff like that. Yeah. I can see that happening a lot more. Hopefully a little. I think that's really good point. It's like as you think about, and sorry to inject it, but it's like, you know, it's like as you think about, you know, one, what we've talked about earlier today, too, is, you know, the nostalgia factor. Like, we're bringing in, like, the Bill Murray's of the world of her talking about last year of Super Bowl. or that John Trull does, right?

And the brands that are bringing in current celebrities that are current YouTube celebrities that are actually getting more views than anybody else is very, very smart. I think that's a really, really good point, Josh. Definitely. And I can see a lot more, like, music celebrities coming into. I mean, we've seen this over the past two years

of Cardi B and Travis Scott being some of the biggest celebrities we've had, period. They're just massive, and people are using them a lot more. I guess it's all the built-in audiences. I'd like to see a little bit smarter use of nostalgia because I'd like to see some new stuff. I don't want to keep dwelling in the past. That's why Hollywood keeps making sequels.

Yeah. I keep seeing all those articles of like all the current celebrities just look like old celebrities. They just keep hiring new actors who look like the same people. It's kind of freaky. I'll have to show those. Any final thoughts from you, Mike? Yeah, you know, it's the fact that, yes,

it took a while to sell out in terms of media this year. But it's sold out, and it still speaks to the fact that it is, it is an unofficial American holiday, and people do tune in to watch not only the game, but the spots. I don't think that's going to change. And when it does,

is the year that my beloved New York Jets are back in the Super Bowl. And I'll probably be dead by that. Definitely. Tyler, any final thoughts? I know we're teasing next week. We're going to see some of the results from neuroinsights studies that you guys are doing on some of those ads. But anything as it relates to the Super Bowl or neuroanalytics? 100%.

Well, first things first, the Jets will never make it back. That's number one. Hey, you're in my hometown there. Show some respect, young man. Hey, let's go Giants, baby. I'll root blue. I'll root blue too. But the big thing, I think there's a couple things. I think Mike you brought it up too.

It's like as sometimes negative as it may sound in maybe like the way we present like the investment that it takes to, you know, get a Super Bowl ad in. The biggest thing is you've got to make sure that it works, right? And understanding storytelling, understanding how people respond to things is the most important thing, which is what we're going to talk about next week. But in general, understand the context, understanding like, you know, how we can actually drive home a brand message is going to be the most important thing as we go forward because the Super Bowl is always going to get a ton of viewers. It's always going to be the highest reach. It's always going to be the most expensive. And the thing that

really, really pisses me off is when advertisers spend a ton of money on, you know, know their ad that's going to be in the super bowl and it doesn't work it doesn't just it doesn't resonate with people yeah the ads that work are the ones that actually translate brand message and that's how you're actually converting customers because otherwise it's just fodder for people to talk about you know what i mean here here um so you know i i think at the end of the day it's like that's what we're trying to do that's what we do as a company it's like we understand storytelling we want to make sure that like your story's being told in the most effective way and that's what we'll We'll talk about next week.

Cool. Tyler, where can everyone find more information on both yourself and neuro insights? Sure. So I can be found on LinkedIn via Neuro Insight. So you can find us at Neuro Insights LinkedIn. Also, my LinkedIn profile is linked to that. So you can find me there.

We also have a Twitter and on Instagram as well at Neuro underscore Insights. site. So, you know, you can find us all over there. Great, man. Really appreciate it. The last thing I'll say, guys, is I challenge people, if you're listening, it's going to sound self-serving, but be radical. Like, if that was my one disappointment of it all, is like, let's push the envelope. I know that we live in a cancel culture, and I know that it was difficult for brands of large size to take risks. I respect that. I understand it as a business owner. But we have to, if I want to, if I want to, You have to remain vigilant in being creative, being thoughtful, but we've got to continue to push the envelope and what we do, how we do, and how we use the power of social media, but bringing all of these things together. So I look forward to looking at the results next week.

Tyler, and talking more. I appreciate it. Mike. Appreciate it, Josh. You know where to find us. We're at the. dot rad. com on Instagram and the radcast.com at any time. And we'll see you next time.

Thank you so much. Yo guys, what's up, Ryan Offord here. Thanks so much for listening. Really appreciate it. But do us a favor. If you've been enjoying the radcast, you need to share the word with a friend or anyone else. We really appreciate it. And go leave us a review at Apple or Spotify.

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