Why is the Super Bowl worth studying even if you hate sports?
Jim: In this episode, we're talking about the biggest marketing event of the year, the Super Bowl.
Thomas: It's true. It's the one time of year people watch television, not to watch the game itself. We can all agree the game is usually boring, but people gather around to watch the new commercials.
Jim: In the Seattle area, we're pretty passionate about the Seahawks, so I get it. But the Super Bowl is one of the biggest TV shows in the world, and if you have the money, it combats the fragmentation of media like nothing else. It's still the best way to reach a mass audience.
Thomas: And in this episode, we're going to talk about how you can have your very own Super Bowl commercial for the low, low price of $5.5 million.
Jim: The first Super Bowl was in '67, and a 30-second spot cost $42,000. Now it's $5 million. The point is, when you spend that kind of money, you have to come up with a great ad. If you're advertising in your newsletter, on Facebook, or in a blog post, everything you do is advertising your books, and it has to be great too. There are a few things we can learn from Super Bowl ads.
Thomas: We're giving you all permission to watch the Super Bowl and call it work research. You can tell your spouse, "I'm not watching the game, I'm researching marketing principles for my book." And you actually will learn something, because when a company spends $5.5 million on an ad, you can bet every second of it is maximized.
Jim: Exactly. And that $5 million figure doesn't even include production. They've often spent millions more making the ad itself, so it's not really a $5 million expense, it could be $7 million or more. They hire a big-name Hollywood director. There's an Anheuser-Busch spot coming up this year with hugely high production value. So yes, Thomas, a lot of money and a lot of research goes into finding an ad that's really going to work.
What kind of ad actually creates an emotional response?
Thomas: So what would you tell the author who says, "I hate sports, what does this have to do with me?" What principles should we apply to our own marketing?
Jim: Personally, when I watch the ads, I ask myself what kind of ad creates an emotional response in me. For a lot of people, it's the humorous ad. Doritos has done a great job of this for years, and they don't just make humorous ads, they involve their customers. They run a contest every year where a consumer-produced ad wins a spot in the Super Bowl. That's a great example of using humor and involving your customer in the ad. So ask yourself, how can you involve customers in your newsletter, your Facebook ads, or your blog posts?
Can you make a boring product funny?
Thomas: Or find the humor in your book, because there's nothing particularly humorous about Doritos chips, per se.
Jim: Correct, correct.
Thomas: They're kind of a terrible chip, honestly, from a taste perspective. They're mostly salt with a cardboard delivery system, plus some chemicals and artificial coloring. But you don't think about that on Sunday, you'll just be laughing, because it's scientifically engineered to make you laugh, and that laughter makes you want to buy the product. Describing Doritos that way probably sounds strange, because the marketing worked on you. It convinced you that a terrible-tasting product is magical.
Jim: Right, and so you buy the product and feel good about it because you felt good while laughing. Now you feel good using the product too. Here's a real example from an author. There's a thriller writer named Brad Meltzer who's had a number of New York Times bestsellers. He once put out a book that got hammered, absolutely panned by nearly everyone who read or reviewed it. So he took a video camera around and filmed people saying the book was horrible, including his own grandmother, who said it was garbage and asked why anyone would pick it up. He used humor to turn the whole situation around, and the video got thousands of hits. It called attention to him and to the book.
Thomas: Although maybe in your own marketing, don't make fun of the fact that your book is terrible.
Jim: Yeah, that's just an example.
What if your ad goes for the heart instead of the laugh?
Thomas: Just an idea. What are some other approaches?
Jim: Going for the heart works too. A number of years ago, Ram Trucks ran a farmer spot that really pulled on the heartstrings of American agriculture. One of the greatest Super Bowl ads of all time, probably top ten, is the Mean Joe Greene spot. Greene played for the Pittsburgh Steelers and had a reputation as a guy who hammered his opponents. In the ad, a little boy gives him a Coke, and you see his soft side come out. It became an iconic, great-feeling ad. And again, they're just selling fizzy sugar water.
Thomas: But you're not really buying fizzy sugar water, you're buying the feeling.
Jim: Exactly. Go for the heart. That sells.
Thomas: That's right. And if you want to know what Coca-Cola actually tastes like without the marketing, give it to a small child who's never had a carbonated, sugary drink before and watch their face. That's the honest reaction to Coca-Cola.
Jim: Yes.
Do you need a Super Bowl budget to make an emotional ad?
Thomas: I'm being cynical. I'm just down on sports, or at least the Super Bowl, since my team lost. But these ads don't have to be expensive. I remember one, maybe for Dodge trucks, that was basically a bunch of photos with a voiceover on top. It was powerful and emotional, something about America. It was the kind of thing I could have made with Keynote on my Mac.
Jim: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Thomas: I could buy fifty stock photos, slice them together, record a voiceover, and add some music. The real difference between what I'd make and what they made is how much work they put into it. They probably tested a dozen different versions on different audiences. But you can apply the same principles of communication style to what you post on Facebook or write on the back of your book.
Jim: That's a good point, Thomas. And if you're not comfortable doing your own voiceover, a site like Fiverr will get you someone for $5 or $10 to do it. You pick the photos, write the script, send it over, and you're done. Some of this is very accessible.
What happens when a great ad forgets to sell the product?
Thomas: So what doesn't work? This is one of the fun parts, there are always commercials that bomb. GoDaddy is a classic example. Their commercials were stupid, gross, and offensive, and there were huge backlashes against them. Even their newer ads, which try to make up for the sexist ones, just end up sexist in a different way. That doesn't make up for it.
Jim: No, it doesn't work the other way.
Thomas: That's not how any of this works. Why can't you just have a normal commercial?
Jim: It's a great question. We've talked about what works, so let's talk about what doesn't. I looked this up recently. There's a spot that's ranked as one of the greatest Super Bowl ads of all time, and it's part of our vernacular. It featured a group of cowboys herding cats. Ask most people if they remember that commercial about cowboys herding cats, and they'll say, "Oh yeah, that was so funny."
Then ask them who the ad was for. There's a long pause, and then, "No idea." Nobody had any clue, because the product was never actually part of the spot. It was for a data company called EDS, and two days later nobody remembered that. A lot of authors do something similar. They run a clever giveaway or promotion, but the ad has nothing to do with their book, no tie-in to its theme, no emotional through-line, and so it fails. Filming that cat-herding spot cost millions of dollars, and it's still ranked as one of the greatest commercials of all time for entertainment value. But as far as selling the product, it didn't work.
What does a successful, product-driven ad look like?
Thomas: My favorite Super Bowl commercial of all time is the one where a guy pours an entire bottle of Tabasco sauce on his pizza. A mosquito lands on him, bites him, and he just watches it. Then it flies off and explodes.
Jim: I remember that. That's a great example of making your product the star of the spot and using humor as the angle, and it worked. Another example is the Old Spice commercial with the guy on the horse saying, "Your man could smell like me." That was an extremely successful ad. Old Spice sales shot through the roof from using humor while still keeping the product front and center.
Who's actually buying your book?
Thomas: Something else that's brilliant about the Old Spice commercial is that it targets the people who actually buy body wash and deodorant. Jim, who buys your deodorant?
Jim: Darcy.
Thomas: Your wife?
Jim: Yes.
Thomas: In most households, it's the wife doing the buying. A man will rarely go buy skincare products for his wife, but she'll buy soap for him. So an ad for men's deodorant or soap is targeting the guy, even though he's not the one buying it. The same might be true for your books. The buyers and the readers don't always overlap. It might be wives buying for husbands, or parents buying for their children, and that's a largely untapped market. A book that appeals to teenagers can suddenly sell to their parents. Does your book have a graduation edge? Does a character graduate at some point, and would the book make a good graduation present?
Suddenly you're selling to a whole new market, maybe to someone who would never read your book, or any book, but is looking for a $15 present for a graduating cousin or nephew. Your book is in front of them as an option, and you've picked up a purchaser you wouldn't have had otherwise. That's the real brilliance of the Old Spice ad. It says hello to the ladies, not hello to the fellas.
Jim: Right, "your man could smell like me." That's a good point, Thomas. We tend to concentrate on our readers, but the buyers matter just as much, even when they're the same person.
Thomas: And you can expand your buyers by thinking beyond your readers. This is especially common in nonfiction. Nonfiction books are a form of currency. People trade them, loan them, and buy them for friends, and they never actually get read. The wife keeps buying diet books for the husband, and he keeps putting them on the shelf.
Jim: That's a good point. So to wrap up, when you're thinking about your newsletters, blog posts, and social media, you're not spending $5 million, but you are spending your time, your creativity, and your emotional energy. Think through these things for every ad you put out.
Thomas: Well said.
How can this podcast's course help you skip the wasted years?
Jim: Okay, Thomas, tell us about who's sponsoring this episode.
Thomas: This episode is sponsored by us. We created our own training course, a 5-year program that guides you from scratch all the way to becoming a bestselling author. We're confident enough in it that we offer a money-back guarantee if you're not a bestselling author after five years. It covers a lot of what we learned the hard way, the things we wish someone had told us, since it typically takes about ten years to become a bestselling author. The course is designed to help you skip the first five years that most people waste learning things the hard way.
Jim: Some of you are six years in, some eight, some three, and some are just starting out. It's for anyone willing to put in the time. The cost isn't the barrier, it's about the price of a cup of coffee a year. The real cost is the work. But if you're willing to put in the work, this is a detailed plan that will get you to the bestseller list.
Thomas: We hope you enjoy it. You can find it at novelmarketing.com, just click the 5-Year Course button. That helps us keep these episodes coming, and we appreciate everyone who's already gotten the course.
Jim: If you want to hear your name, your book, and your website mentioned on this podcast, leave us a review on iTunes with your name and book title. Even a bad review works. And if you like the show, the best way to help us out is to subscribe.
Thomas: You've been listening to James L. Rubart and Thomas Umstattd Jr. on the Novel Marketing Podcast, giving you novel ideas on how to promote yourself and your writing offline, online, and everywhere in between.
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