Yesterday we presented the three winning advertisers from our Super Bowl Search Marketing Scorecard. Today, however, we’d like to take a look on the flip side – the least connected, worst presented, the most un-search-savvy and under-represented 30 second spots in the Super Bowl…

The ScoreCard Fumbles

GM
Though GM’s assembly line ad was cute, the promotion was poorly executed. Within the ad itself, the only visible link between the commercial and their website was a small “GM.com” logo at the end. GM could have created any number of incentives to encourage people go online – more information, commercial replays, even a background story about their suicidal robot – but, without some call to action, they failed to guide viewers from the TV to the Internet. In terms of SEM, GM lacked a search presence for both branded and generic terms. Though GM’s landing page included images from the TV ad and an offer to learn more about warranties, without relevant traffic from paid search, it went to little effect.

IZOD
Stylish? Yes. Pointless? Yes. IZOD’s TV commercial had no call to action and no information about the product. As a result, we were blindly guessing search terms that might bring us to an ad. Their website entry page is again, very sleek, but also a usability nightmare. Difficult to navigate and with no mention of the Super Bowl, the IZOD site did not give viewers any clear direction or incentive to stay.

DORITOS
As one of the most sensationalized “new media” advertisers this year, I was surprised by how poorly Doritos implemented SEM. The site itself has too much Flash, usability issues and is impossibly slow to upload. Because the site is set up like a 3-D world, I found myself clicking on stuff at random, hoping it would turn into a video. Considering Doritos’ extensive pre-game promotion for the Crash the Super Bowl contest, it’s a huge disappointment to see them fall flat in the aftermath.

The fact that each of these ads is rated highly in YouTube’s SuperVote competition indicates that they missed out big time by not properly integrating SEM. Each of them undoubtedly poured enormous budgets into the production and pre-game promotion of their ads, which makes their lack of presence post-game an even bigger fumble.

For a full overview of our Scorecard or to download the PDF, check out the Reprise Media website.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 7th, 2007 at 6:10 pm and is filed under Search Marketing Scorecard. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.