Ms. Adverthinker

This has been online for a while and posted to this site before, but since it always makes me smile I thought it was worth dusting off again today.  Enjoy.

Just a quick thought.  A few days ago, we were all patting Pepsi on the back for being different and for recognizing the power of social media when it was announced that they were abstaining from the Super Bowl advertising orgy this year and instead launching a socially conscious social media campaign.

Today, when the ratings for the Super Bowl were released we find that with 106 million viewers, it was the most watch telecast EVER.  So, was Pepsi smart to sit this one out?

There was a Super Bowl gathering at my abode, and in between cooking, conversation and conviviality around the Saints, we Googled, blogged and surfed the social networks.  Because we work in the business, our web use centered around the Super Bowl advertising.  And while most commercials were disappointing, there were some stood out from the overdone guy humor that was abundant this year.  I am not going to get into my opinion of what advertising was good, bad or ugly - you can find more than enough commentary about that here, here and here.  I want to talk about is the morphing of the event into an online social experience.

Watching the Super Bowl has always been a social event: friends gather, eat, drink, boo and cheer. The advent of social media made our parties grow exponentially over the last couple of years as we interacted with those we knew online in addition to those watching the game with us in person. Last year, 12% of Super Bowl viewers were online during the game, according to Mashable. But this year, rather than having to search out the pertinent discussions on Twitter and Facebook separately, communities have developed around areas of interest, be it sports, food or advertising.  Hashtags are now used more consistently, making search for relevant commentary outside those communities easier, too.  With these community hubs and hashtag prevalence, our online interactions have gone from just the people we know (and the people they know) to introductions to people, content and views we might never have stumbled upon before.  And just when we thought we couldn’t be more connected to the world.

I didn’t want the Super Bowl fun to end last night. In years past, I have only watched the Super Bowl for the commercials, and even then become bored by the second half. Last night was different, it was bigger and it felt like my world expanded just a little bit more.  And that is always a good thing for the curious being that is me.

For fun, here is my favorite commercial of the night.  Although, as it turns out, it has been around for a few months, last night was my first viewing.

It seems like this commercial comes on every morning during MSNBC’s Morning Joe and it just makes me smile. Music can have such a huge impact on commercial likability. Enjoy.

There is something about this Geico “Pothole” commercial that transcends social, political and gender boundaries: everyone likes it.  Does it work to help sell insurance for Geico?  I have no idea.  But it makes me giggle every time I hear it and I think more favorably of Geico for creating it (and almost forget they are responsible for the Cave Men spots).

This week, Twitter released a new feature that allows for the creation of “lists.”  This makes perfect sense: with the rapid growth of Twitter, it is becoming harder to figure out which people to follow. The amount of data out there is getting overwhelming; according to a CNN article:

“Approximately 25 million Tweets are posted every day; more than 5 billion have been created since Twitter’s launch.

“Facebook users are even more prolific in aggregate: Forty-five million updates are posted there daily. In May, the last date for which we have data, YouTube announced that 20 hours of video is uploaded to its servers every minute. That’s more than three years of content being uploaded to YouTube daily.

“As the barriers to media production fall — cameras in virtually every cell phone, video cameras in iPods, text messaging as a publishing platform — this content tsunami is growing ever taller”

Lists allow for those you trust to create a filter of all this data, by category, for you.

And, for those that follow Twitter through desktop apps like Seesmic and Tweetdeck, they are working to integrate list following into their applications (Seesmic actually already has; Tweetdeck is still working on it).

Check out the Stone Ward Staff Twitter list.

Love this “Know Your Girls” video. Thank you, Yoplait.

In an unbelievably quick turnaround, Nike has a new spot with great athletes congratulating Federer.  Impressive.

Ms. Adverthinker is a bit of a compulsive magazine reader: at last count, I believe my subscriptions totaled 13 magazines at home and five at the office.  And, Wired is one of my favorites.  I have not yet received my May issue, but after reading the NY Times article about the puzzle embedded in the issue, I am very excited:

“…the intent of their new issue, created in collaboration with Mr. Abrams [is] to immerse their audience in a series of riddles — some announced, others not — that were buried just deep enough for the readers who wanted to dig them up.”

At a time when publishers are struggling to keep readers engaged in print editions of both newspapers and magazines (and thereby sell advertising), this idea is brilliant.  While the larger puzzle has already been solved, Wired says that there will be additional prizes for subsequent readers that solve the puzzle and there are still a few codes that haven’t been cracked yet.

AT&T premiered a new commercial during the Masters coverage this weekend; it featured TOMS founder Blake Mycoski.  I have written about TOMS before in this space.  The company gives shoes to children in need around the world.  They are able to do this with a business model based on an one-for-one purchase: for every pair of shoes purchased by you, the consumer, TOMS gives one pair of shoes away.  On the company’s blog, Mr. Mycoski writes:

“Two months ago AT&T approached us wanting to feature TOMS in an ad campaign. We could not have been more excited and grateful, but to find out weeks later that the ad would premiere as part of the Masters telecast was truly an honor.”

And, through Twitter, TOMS tells us that the commercial is doing the company some good:

“since the #TOMSatt commercial started airing last Thurs, thousands of children will receive a pair of shoes thanks to you!! One for One”

AT&T should receive big kudos for using their media power to promote companies like TOMS.

The New York Times has a map showing words tweeted during the Super Bowl. Very cool. Check it on out and be sure to press “play.” One of the most interesting things about this map is the geographic penetration of Twitter.

See the interactive map here.

From the people that brought us the drumming gorilla, a new spot for Cadbury appears. It is great fun, just as chocolate should be. The drumming gorilla was a great viral success for Cadbury, and it looks as if this one has that potential too.

For those of you that do not remember the drumming gorilla, here it is (if it hasn’t been removed yet for copyright infringement):

An interesting video about the ways marketing has changed.