go-Digital Blog on Digital Marketing

USA Today Tells Facebook Its Services Are No Longer Needed For Super Bowl (FB)

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/usa-today-tells-facebook-its-services-are-no-longer-needed-for-super-bowl-2012-12

Last year, USA Today partnered with Facebook to create its Super Bowl Ad Meter, which for better or worse has become the most prominent measure of a Super Bowl ad’s success.

The partnership was innovative because it asked all Facebook members to vote on ads, instead of just a panel of a handful of people selected by USA Today. And it brought the power of social media to an inherently social event on behalf of a stolidly traditional media property.

But no more.

This year the newspaper is going it alone — again. It’s told Facebook its services are no longer needed. Publisher Larry Kramer told Ad Age:

“We want to do this ourselves because we’re going to do a lot of these,” he said. “We need to build the apparatus ourselves do we’d own it.” 

“Look, Facebook is great and we like working with them, but if you look at this organization today top to bottom vs. a year ago, we’re a lot more digital … And we need to build that internally.”

The Ad Meter’s qualifications for being the nation’s top rater of Super Bowl ads have previously been called into question. It doesn’t measure halftime ads, even though those ads — such as Clint Eastwood’s “Halftime in America” spot for Chrysler — are some of the most talked-about commercials.

And it consists of a voting panel of just 300 people in two separate locations — even though dozens of social media analytics companies can measure chatter about the Super Bowl online from millions of people.

USA Today will replace Facebook with a “a password-protected microsite” that users will have to sign up for in order to vote.

If you can’t be bothered to do that, don’t worry: Business Insider will bring you our “Super Bowl For Quants” roundup of social media analyses of the ads the day after the game.

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Clint Eastwood’s “It’s Halftime in America” Super Bowl spot for Chrysler pissed off Karl Rove and other Republican leaders. Rove told Fox News: “It is a sign of what happens when you have Chicago-style politics, and the president of the United States and his political minions are, in essence, using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising.” 

Ad Age reports that AOL is looking to hire an advertising agency who will explain “why people should care about AOL again.” Leo Burnett held the account in 2009 but hasn’t done work for AOL since 2010.

Ads are coming to Facebook’s mobile app.

NBC Universal digital executive Devin Johnson has joined Studio One as its new COO.

Subway’s U.S. digital media duties have switched from Publicis Groupe’s Publicis Modem to MediaCom.

Facebook has hired Rebecca Van Dyck, a former Levis and Apple exec, to head its global marketing division.

Nada Stirratt, a former MySpace, AOL, and MTV exec, has joined Axicom.

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See Also:

• Here Are All Of This Year’s Super Bowl Ads—By Quarter, In Order
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There’s fascinating disconnect between which advertisers the media thinks did well on last night’s Super Bowl and what the research says was effective.

To hear the business press tell it, Clint Eastwood’s “Halftime in America” spot rocked the house. It was indeed a great spot from a creative point of view.

But it didn’t even show up in the Ace Metrix Top 10. Ace Metrix measures a panel of 500 consumers who watch ads and rate them for effectiveness. That research says Doritos’ sling baby ad won the night.

It was also a big night for dogs. Volkswagen’s much anticipated follow-up to its little Darth Vader spot from last year used an obese dog getting in shape to gets its revenge on a VW it wanted to chase down the street (and then somehow ended up in the Star Wars cantina scene).

Skechers used a dog — Mr. Quiggly — in a greyhound race.

As did Bud Light, whose appeal with Weego, a rescue dog, was heartwarming.

So did Doritos, in another comedic appeal revolving around the whole Dogs v. Cats war.

There weren’t any total disasters — last year both Groupon and HomeAway had to apologize for their ads — but there were some failures in the sense that clients ads bored people or went unnoticed.

Chase ran an ad that for the life of me I can’t recall even though I am paid to remember these things. And TaxACT’s ad, featuring a kid who urinates in a swmming pool, was disgusting.

Later today — much later — we’ll take a look at how B.I.’s readers judged the ads with the results of our Super Bowl ad readers’ poll. Vote early, and often!

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See Also:

• VOTE HERE: For The Best And Worst Super Bowl Ads
• SUPER BOWL ADS LIVE BLOG: Instant Reaction From Our Man With The Nachos!
• Here Are All Of This Year’s Super Bowl Ads