You can learn a lot about the web in places you might not expect. Take Superbowl ads, for instance. Anytime a company invests about $3 million just to show you something for 30 seconds, it was probably well-thought-out. If you watch closely, and can get past the bright lights and loud noises, you can learn a lot. Here are three ads that stood out to me.
A great product still speaks for itself. All Google had to do to prove it is still way cooler than Bing was to show its product in action. Could you make a compelling 30 second ad solely from screen capture of your site or application? Think about it.
Plan for success. If you are going to spend $2 million on a 30 second ad, make sure viewers can follow your call to action. Two minutes after watching the Dockers ad that ended with “dockers.com/freepants” I visited the site from my iPhone. Oops. Maybe it was hosted by GoDaddy.com.
Quality still counts. I’ve never been particularly impressed by Hyundai automobiles, but I loved their commercial about quality. They claimed their plant in the US employs 3300 people who are each considered quality specialists. Is quality something you tack-on at the end of a project or is quality the job of each and every team member?
What did you learn about the web from Superbowl ads? Watch them all on Hulu.
