By Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk
The first cold-weather outdoor stadium Super Bowl game that most of us can ever recall will finally be taking place this Sunday. It seems like the only thing we can all talk about this week, other than Super Bowl 48, is the winter weather. It was a whole 3 degrees in Western New York this morning as I started to write this post. However, today is supposed to be the last of this Arctic Blast for now and we should be back up to normal winter temperatures by tomorrow. That's a good thing for those attending the Super Bowl game at MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands and visiting the sights in NYC.
It should be a great game with the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks, the two teams that ended up with the best records from each conference. Of course we have all the Super Bowl ads to watch as well. However, I feel like I've already seen the majority of them. Can you believe that there are now ads that promote the Super Bowl ads? Jaguar is now running ads on a dozen subway trains in New York City with wraps inside and out reminding consumers to be on the lookout for their TV commercial airing Super Bowl Sunday. Plus, YouTube launched their Ad Blitz channel which gives us a sneak peek of many Super Bowl ad teasers along with the actual ads.
One ad that we haven't seen yet is from Intuit, you know the company that makes Quicken and TurboTax. Yes, besides the weather and the game, taxes are on most people's minds these days as well. Intuit ran a contest at the end of the year called "Small Business, Big Game". The Grand Prize winner of the contest is awarded a professional Super Bowl spot for their business, created and produced by Inuit's agency RPA, along with the almost $4 million to run it during the broadcast. This is a little different twist from the consumer-generated videos that the Dorito's brand as been running from their popular Crash the Super Bowl contest.
Over 15,000 small businesses entered the contest and more than a million voted on their favorites. The submission period started back on July 31 and ended close to the end of September. To enter participants needed to submit a story of their small business in 600 characters or less along with an optional photo. All submissions were posted in an online
gallery and the public was invited to vote on the submission they felt had the most public appeal. At the end of this Round 1, a panel of judges chose the top 250 small businesses based on the following criteria: The small business has a compelling story and submission demonstrates passion for the business (40%); can appropriately represent the Sponsor as a brand ambassador (40%); and Public Appeal, the votes (20%).
Those 250 small businesses were then invited to participate in Round 2 by submitting a video that was a response to a question that the Sponsor posed. Again, all the video submission were posted in an online gallery and the pubic was invited to vote. The judges then narrowed it down to the top 20 semi-finalists based on a more detailed judging criteria that only involved Pubic Appeal (the votes) at 10% of the final decision.
The 20 semi-finalists were contacted and had to agree to have a confidential background check done and a full day of interviews with the Sponsor. They also had to agree that if selected they would be available in December for the production of a TV spot as well as to come to NYC during Super Bowl Week. From there the Sponsor determined the top four finalists based on the judges' scores in combination with the results of the background check.
So it is now down to the top four finalists which you can learn more about on the contest website. One company is actually called "Poop" that makes compost for lawns and gardens from the manure of dairy cows. Then you have “Locally Laid,” a husband and wife team who's company sells pasture-raised eggs from their hens, who graze and exercise on green fields. "Barley Labs" is another husband and wife team who make dog treats out of the barley that's left over from their home beer-brewing. The fourth company is called "Goldie Blox" that makes construction toys for girls to encourage more female engineers. So there you have it. Appears that there is a little hippie-style entrepreneurial spirit in each of these companies.
So as we're watching the game this Sunday and drinking our Bud Light and Pepsi while eating Doritos, don't be surprised if a little Poop sneaks its way in. Go Payton and the Denver Bronco's!
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