Pepsi Shifting NFL Ad Dollars Online

In what may be a mini ‘bell weather moment’ in advertising, Pepsi has decided to keep its usual Super Bowl advertising money in its bank account. While they are not exactly saving it they are certainly redirecting it to online opportunities. I say this is a potential ‘bell weather’ moment because it ends a streak of 23 consecutive years where Pepsi has advertised during the event that attracts some of the largest viewing audiences in the history of television.

So what is Pepsi saying with this move? It’s more like a question they are asking the NFL and the advertising world that has made such a big fuss over Super Bowl ads for years: Where’s the value? Not to worry about the NFL though because they are still getting Pepsi-bucks……just not in a big chunk for the big game. Compete tells a little more

Pepsi is already a large sponsor of the NFL, having paid millions back in 2002 to replace Coke for the title of the official soft drink of the NFL. The company also sponsors Rookie of the Week section on NFL.com.

So the big moment is more about the how Pepsi is deciding to spend its money rather than with whom. The NFL is a marketing juggernaut (I had to use that word before the close of 2009) and will remain so. Even the NFL though is going to have to adjust to the dollars that are moving online that once fueled the just as important Super Bowl activity of watching and rating the advertisements. If last year was any indication that ‘pastime’ may be on the decline as well as many companies didn’t even create specific ads for the big game but simply rehashed old ones. Kinda takes the fun out of it, doesn’t it?

So why is Pepsi seeing the online space as the way to go? Compete shows a little data below that may become the new version of the old ‘Pepsi Taste Challenge”.

Even more interesting are the differences in competitive share of visitors to Pepsi and Coke sites between control and exposed consumers. Among the control group, Pepsi captures only 16% of visitors versus a lion’s share of 84% for Coke. However, the numbers are completely reversed among the exposed group.

So what is your thought about the days of the big Super Bowl advertising buys and the excitement around the creativity of the ads? Are the days of Super Bowl ads being a huge deal going the same way as my NY Giants (meaning directly south and in the toilet)?

Your thoughts?

Comments

Yahoo Survey Finds Optimism for Holiday Online Retail

Yahoo conducted a survey of small business online retailers to find out how they think they'll perform this upcoming holiday season compared to previous years.

"Surprisingly, based on the current economic landscape, the results show an optimistic outlook, with over 60 percent of the Yahoo! merchants surveyed expecting sales to be the same as most years or even stronger," a representative for Yahoo tells WebProNews.

"Only 25% expected sales to be weaker than most years (with the remaining 15% expecting sales to be weaker than most years but stronger than last year)," she adds. "After last year in which sales were plagued by the recession, this holiday season just may shape up to mark a rebound of sorts for small business online retailers."

Some other findings from the survey include: 

- The most optimistic industries are beauty and fragrances; clothing, accessories & shoes; and food – in all cases more than 40 percent think this will be a stronger year than most years.

- Several industries feel sales will be back to normal this season after being way down last year, including books and magazines, electronics, and music.

- These sectors tend to include lower cost gift options than some of the more pessimistic sectors such as computers & hardware (in which only 6% expect this year to be stronger than most years and 64% expect sales to be weaker than most years).

A recent survey from Google found that by last week, half of consumers had already begun holiday shopping. However, research from MerchantCircle found that only about 23% of merchants believe the worst of the recession is behind us.

Have You Read This?

> Holiday Shoppers Want Deals Even More Than They Did Last Year

> More People Plan To Shop Online During The Holidays

> Good Chunk of Holiday Spending Will Be Online

Good Chunk of Holiday Spending Will Be Online

Nielsen has shared some findings from research involving how American consumers intend to spend their money during the upcoming holiday season. About 42% expect to spend less.

Online retailers may not feel the hit as much as some brick and mortars, however. According to Nielsen, online retailers, as well as value retailers like dollar stores, discounters, and club stores will attract "the lion's share" of holiday spending. The firm says consumers will want to minimize trips and search for the best values.

According to Nielsen's findings, 86% of consumers expect to spend the same or less than lest year. There is a 7% increase in the "less" category, from last year. Still, Nielsen thinks holiday sales will rise 0.03%, accounting for $90 billion.

"Given everything the consumer has absorbed over the past 12 to 18 months, the fact that we expect this coming holiday season to be flat in dollars can be viewed as a modest positive," says James Russo, Vice President, Global Consumer Insights at the Nielsen Company.

"Americans have undergone a fundamental change in how they spend their money, and the days of stretching finances to make purchases not deemed as necessary are over, at least for the time being," adds Russo. "That said, our research has shown that consumers are looking forward to loosening their purse strings a bit, but only once they feel more confident about the state of the economy and their personal financial situation."

October approaches. Many consumers begin shopping well before Thanksgiving, and that means the time is close at hand to begin preparing. Online discounts and free shipping have historically been popular motivators for purchases. If you can swing these things, it will likely be in your best interest to do so.

It's as good a time as any to get heavily involved in social network participation as well. If you're a retailer, you'll want to be out there conversing and staying in people's minds as they search for gift ideas for their friends and families.

Nielsen says traditional items like apparel, toys and technology will be the most popular categories, but at restrained levels and primarily sold in "value" channels. They say products like cookware, kitchen items, bed and bath accessories and alcoholic beverages will also do well. Gift cards are one category where consumers plan to spend more this holiday season, followed by toys and apparel. Office supplies, pet stores, home improvement and drug retailers are not expected to so as well.

A couple of additional findings were that 20% of households said that they had no plans to entertain at home or away from home during the holidays, and spending cut-backs are being driven by all income groups.

Online Video Viewing Sees New High in August

In August, online video reached a record high, with over 25 billion videos watched during the month, according to data from comScore. A pretty good chunk of these were watched via Google sites (hardly surprising, considering the enormous popularity of YouTube). Google sites accounted for over 10 billion videos watched in August.

Let's not pretend that Google sites other than YouTube played a significant role in Google's dominance in this category. YouTube accounted for 99% of Google's video market share. Microsoft sites ranked 2nd with 547 million (2.2%) followed by Viacom Digital with 539 million videos viewed (2.1%) and Hulu with 488 million (1.9%). Here's the top ten (note: rankings are basd on video content sites, and don't include video server networks. They include both streaming and downloaded videos):

That was by videos viewed. Here's a look at the top ten by unique viewers:

Over 161 million viewers watched an average of 157 videos per viewer during the month. Google Sites attracted 121.4 million unique viewers during the month (82.8 videos per viewer), followed by Microsoft Sites with 54.9 million viewers (10 videos per viewer) and Yahoo Sites with 51.6 million viewers (6.9 videos per viewer).

To put the whole picture into perspective, 81.6% of the total US Internet audience viewed online video in August. The average online video viewer watched 582 minutes of video, or 9.7 hours. 120.5 million viewers watched nearly 10 billion videos on YouTube. 44.9 million viewers watched 340 million videos on MySpace. The average Hulu viewer watched 12.7 videos, totaling 1 hour and 17 minutes of videos per viewer, and the duration of the average online video was 3.7 minutes.