What Would You Do With $3 Million?
Posted on January 24, 2008 - Filed Under ideaDRUNK's ideas
$3 million dollars. What could it buy you? A nice house. The ability to travel around the world for the rest of your life. About 8 Ferraris. Two weeks of AIDS retroviral treatments for 300,000 people in Africa.
Or it could buy a 30 second spot during the Super Bowl.
The question posed by Brains On Fire was, what would you do with $3 million? I guess the answer (as always) is it depends. It depends what brand I’m representing and what I want to achieve.
Football Brand – Under Armor
I’m not entirely sure how much Under Armor has to spend in their marketing budget, but I have a feeling it might be slightly less than Nike, their number one competitor in the category. Of course, Under Armor has a much stronger, competitive and authentic brand image than Nike within this segment. All of the Average Joes out there think that by putting on some tight-fighting UA gear, I’m suddenly going to be exponentially more awesome at Sunday pick-up flag football. That’s amazing equity for the brand.
Instead of spending $3 million on the media buy for the commercials during the Super Bowl (on major US networks), I would fans insights on how the teams/players are prepping for the big game. I’m talking about last minute productions, interviews and training montages. Ones that are gritty and provide an honest view into how the players are prepping for the big game.
Then, instead of buying media weight, I would sell these mini-prep episodes to ESPN. All real American sports fans have ESPN. Under Armor doesn’t care about the mini-van majority. They just want the hardcore fans/players who love football.
Car Brand
Car companies are the worst at advertising! For the vast majority, their ads are some shiny new car model driving around either in the city (if they’re a car) or kicking up dirt in a desert (if they’re a pickup truck). From a personal perspective, I can never remember which ad goes with which brand.
The solution? Don’t buy media during the Super Bowl. The majority of people are going to mistake a competitor’s ad for yours anyways, so just skip it. Instead, what I would do is put the $3 million on the line as the world’s biggest (official) Super Bowl bet.
You pick two of your dealers, one in each hometown. Whoever wins the game, also wins free cars for the first 150 people to show up at the dealership. It’s like Oprah’s free car day … except, this time your brand isn’t overshadowed by Oprah.
Beer Brand – Anyone But Budweiser
Let’s face it. Anheuser-Busch is going to outspend you. They are going to have a bunch of horses, or a Dalmatian, or hot cheerleaders appear about a zillion times during the Super Bowl. They are going to drive everyone to the liquor stores to pick up beer before the game, during the game and on the way home.
And that’s cool. Let them spend their money reminding people to drink Bud. Let them own the airwaves. What I would do is mass the budget in a place where I could outspend them (and convert spending directly to sales). I would own the point of sale. I would throw some kick ass sales promotion out there. Maybe a sweet gift-with-purchase? (A DVD of 100 best Super Bowl moments?) Or maybe a limited time offer of $5 off a 24? To be honest, my creativity in the promotional realm has gotten a little rusty lately, but you get the idea. You mass your funds at a single point, where you can beat Bud and convert people to real sales.
So that’s what I would do with $3 million. What would you do? (And it definitely doesn’t have to be marketing related).
- Christian
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7 Responses to “What Would You Do With $3 Million?”
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I’d buy out Bryan McCabe’s contract.
Oh wait, only $3 million…I had $30 mil in my head…never mind.
I would start my own brewery. And Brian McCabe wouldn’t be invited to the opening party.
Take a million, give it to my money manager. Take a week or two to figure out where the other 2 million should be donated. I like the AIDS retrovirus plan you mentioned. Or veterans. Or OLPC. Or a bunch. I’d have to give most of it away.
“To be honest, my creativity in the promotional realm has gotten a little rusty lately”
Has it been that long? Anyway, one thing to remember is that that $3 million isn’t only for the TV impressions anymore. The views in the weeks after the Superbowl on the Net for a very good ad could be worth the spend. And if it’s really good, you’ll get other TV pick-up as well. It would be interesting to see the true cost per eyeball when all that’s taken into account.
[…] couple of days ago, I brought up the fact that the air time for a Super Bowl ad can be up to $3 million. Now, needless to say, that’s a lot of coin for eyeballs. Especially for companies whose ads have […]
Freeman,
But if you invested in making an equally good ad and ran it in conjunction with some online promotions of where the TV ads are running, wouldn’t you have the potential to capture all of those residual eyeballs?
But you’re right. The cost-per-impression is a lot less than $3 million divided by the amount of people watching the superbowl. Sometimes the ads outshine the game.