online+ad+critique


 * CCT356**
 * Online Ad Critique - Mercedes' Tweet Race vs. Dead Space 2**

As companies are realizing how much time people spend engaging in social media content, the movement of advertisements methods have shift as well. The average time spent online continues to increase and studies have shown that social networking have dominated the overall time spent online. Many goods and services are becoming available online can be conveniently assessable. This allowed changes in ways of raising promotional awareness. Two different marketing approaches will be examined through online social media campaigns.

//MERCEDES BENZ TWEET RACE // Official Campaign

Official Facebook Page

 The first advertisement campaign is Mercedes Benz Tweet Race. How it works is that Mercedes Benz have created four specially designed cars that is generated by the amount of Twitter posts (also known as “Tweets”) it receives; the more Tweets, the faster it will go. Four teams are selected through a registration process to compete in the race along with a co-driver of their choice. On Feb. 2, 2011, teams start from one of four cities: New York, L.A., Chicago or Tampa with a pair of Super Bowl tickets heading towards Dallas Cowboy Stadium in Dallas, Texas. The winner will not be the one who gets to the stadium first, however, it is determined by which team generates the most activity through Tweets and the drivers will win an all-new 2012 C-Class Coupe car each when they drum up the most Tweets from Twitter followers that fuel the teams to victory.

 The Tweet Race campaign concept was developed at Merkley and Partners, and the Tweet Race itself was developed and implement by Razorfish. This year will be the first time Mercedes Benz is advertising at the Super Bowl. With large corporations sinking millions of dollars into Super Bowl commercials, it is important for them to know who their target audience audiences are. By this matter, Mercedes Benz decided to create a campaign using Facebook and Twitter as platforms for the ad. The reason why business fight for that 30 seconds of your time is because the three hour time segment consists of the most watched television viewers hitting approximately 100 million people, with a demographic of around 70% of male audiences and 30% female (The Nielsen Company). By using these mediums, allows Mercedes Benz to attract a younger audience in addition to the general middle aged population during the Super Bowl segment. Also, the overall campaign method not only attracts television viewers, but people who spend a large sum of their time online to become aware of their commercial in the Super Bowl. It also allows Mercedes Benz to capture audiences who don’t have their interest in football, particularly the Super Bowl, to become aware of their new cars.

The main goal is to get everyone talking. According to Mercedes Advertising Chief Steve Cannon, this ad campaign is aimed to create a type of ‘living’ ad that allows audiences to engage in new ways (Kiley). Many ad bloggers tend to claim that Mercedes is using a smart method of not investing all of their dollars into one commercial, but rather also through the use of social media before, during and after the Super Bowl (Boris). By this, it allows them to turn their 30 seconds of fame into a month-long journey. Generally, I found this advertisement approach to be very effective in gathering their target audiences in watching their million dollar commercial during the Super Bowl; it is very much like an advertisement for an advertisement!

 As a regular user of Twitter, I first noticed this ad on my Twitter account with friends updating me of a thing known to be a “Tweet Race”. Little did I know that it was of an actual car race. Mercedes Benz first launched this campaign on December 16, 2010 to get the social media hyped up about this event and become aware of the campaign. This strategy allowed the company to gather a large sum of audiences quickly over a month and a half period. I found this campaign to be evidently successful, because it allows millions of Twitter users to participate and interact with the actual campaign. By fuelling a vehicle, Twitter activity allows the campaign to meet a certain amount of awareness requirement for the company.

//DEAD SPACE 2 // Official Campaign

Official Website

Official YouTube Channel

 The second is of Your Mom Hates Dead Space 2 online campaign. This campaign began with Electronic Arts (EA)’s Dead Space 2 promoters doing a focus-group testing subject to the game’s goriest footages of the reaction from over 200 mothers. The results from the group were of what was expected: disapproval, disgust, shocked, and horrified. Explained in a behind the scenes footage, EA explains that the indicator of coolness of videogames has been inversely proportional to how a mom dislikes it. By having clips of moms saying how much they hate the game, the more people would want the game.

 This viral campaign uses YouTube and Twitter as platforms for the ad. It first began with having YouTube video links attached to the main website of Dead Space 2. The videos showed the actual trailer of the game with the clips of the testing embedded in it and the full market testing process of several mothers that stood out from the group. The marketers of Dead Space 2 later added Twitter as platform to get audiences involved in recording their own mother’s reaction to the game and posting it on their Twitter account to reach more audiences quickly.

 The agency behind the campaign is Draftfcb in San Francisco. According to Draftfcb, “the campaign has generated an incredible amount of conversations about the game from news outlets ranging from Salon.com to New York Magazine” (Draftfcb). Its YouTube channel, Dead Space, was able to generate around 2 million views in the first week of release, as well as having the works of the campaign was well recognized from the writers of Adult Swim, an adult-oriented cable TV network shared with Cartoon Network.

 I believe that this campaign was not as successful in terms of generating more sales firstly because the game is rated Mature in which is directed towards 17 years old and older, which a large portion of the targeted population would not purchase a game based on what their mothers think. Mainly those who are below the indicated population would mind in which those children would have to ask their parents to purchase the game for them. By showing the disapproval of other mothers, would not reassure mothers purchasing the game would be ideal for their children. Ben Kuchera, gaming editor of Ars Technica, pointed out that the target market for this ad was unclear and that the previous ads EA used was “certainly more effective” (Ars Technica). Secondly, it is evident that this campaign will be viewed by only those who are already aware of the game. The only way to watch it is through its original site, or through YouTube. YouTube tags for this were “Your Mom Hates Dead Space 2”, “Dead Space”, “Action”, “Horror”, “EA”, “Visceral”, “Xbox 360”, “PS3”, and “PC”. Since 7 out of the 9 words were very broad keywords. It is not likely for audiences to randomly land on the video unless linked by someone who has already heard of it. However, it did generate a lot of viewers for the YouTube videos. By this matter, EA is fortunate to have a dedicated market segment that purchases videogames based on the gaming experience it can potentially provide, and less influential of what others think. Therefore, this campaign would not result in hurting the sales of Dead Space 2 much.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> In terms of which online advertising campaign was more successful than the other, I believed Mercedes did a better job at showcasing it through the use of Twitter and Facebook platforms. It was evident that Mercedes Benz had a better understanding of their target group, much greater than that of Electronic Arts. The correct use engagement of audiences in the right platforms also allowed them to excel in their campaign. However, the strategy integrated in both campaigns allowed people to stir up their interests online. The current strategy used allowed both Mercedes Benz and EA to create a mix of advertising and product integration that triggers the interest of the target audience more so that they would visit their website to see more of the campaign and share ideas about it virally through the web.

__<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Bibliography __ <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Boris, Cynthia. "Super Bowl Ads and Extending Your 30 Seconds of Fame." Marketing Pilgrim. The Pilgrim Network, 31 Jan. 2011. Web. 04 Feb. 2011. <http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2011/01/super-bowl-ads-and-extending-your-30-seconds-of-fame.html>.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Draftfcb. "Draftfcb — Our Work." Draftfcb. Web. 05 Feb. 2011. <http://www.draftfcb.com/work-detail.aspx?work=273>. <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Griner, David. "Video Game Shocks Mothers in Focus Group!" AdFreak. Adweek, 18 Jan. 2011. Web. 05 Feb. 2011. <http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2011/01/video-game-shocks-mothers-in-focus-group.html>.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Kiley, David. "Mercedes Holds Twitter Race for Super Bowl." AdFreak. Adweek, 20 Jan. 2011. Web. 04 Feb. 2011. <http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2011/01/mercedes-holds-twitter-race-for-super-bowl.html>.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Kuchera, Ben. "Dead Space 2 Is for Gamers That Care about Annoying Their Moms." Ars Technica. Condé Nast Digital, 18 Jan. 2011. Web. 05 Feb. 2011. <http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/01/dead-space-2-is-for-gamers-that-care-about-annoying-their-mom.ars>.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">The Nielsen Company. "Football TV Ratings Soar: the NFL’s Playbook for Success." Nielsen Wire. 28 Jan. 2011. Web. 04 Feb. 2011. <http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/media_entertainment/football-tv-ratings-soar-the-nfls-playbook-for-success/>.