The greatest show on earth was a business case study as much as it was an entertainment spectacle. And for 50 MBA students from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, the score (43-8, by the way) was far from their focus.
It is not unlike MBAs to unwind with an all-night Super Bowl extravaganza, but for this group of marketers, the commercials were, oddly, the highlight of their evening. There was soda instead of beer; score-sheets and notepads instead of chips ‘n dip. For them, it was more than just a game.
Most sporting b-school students will have heard enough by now to exit the webpage. And for most people, this is not the way to enjoy one of sport’s greatest events. But there is method in the madness.
The Super Bowl is a prime opportunity to assess the marketing industry. With record viewing figures, big-name advertisers splash the cash on this yearly-spectacle. Indeed, The Washington Post reported that a 30-second spot will cost around $4 million.
And when it comes to advertisement, the Super Bowl is a different beast. Nearly every viewer will watch it live instead of a recorded version – the latter giving them a chance to hit fast-forward and skip past ads straight to the good stuff. For most MBAs, there was no escaping Coca-Cola and Doritos branding last night.
As Christine Fraser, an MBA student at Kellogg, agrees, Super Bowl ads set the benchmark in the US. “One of the really exciting and unique things about Super Bowl ads is that they set up a brand for that year; a launch statement for the rest of the American public,” she said.
The Kellogg students evaluated the strategic value of the ad, using a six-point framework to analyze each commercial, assessing categories such as attention and linkage between the creative and the brand.
This is the 10th year of the Kellogg Super Bowl Advertising Review, designed to give MBA students the skills to apply marketing concepts in real-time. As any marketing student will tell you, knowing the strategy isn’t enough; applying the ideas is crucial.
On the face of it, that’s an easy task. Most MBAs will know how to position a product to a specific target audience. But the challenge becomes clear when you have to judge the success of the ads.
The mega-corporations that advertise during the Super Bowl are hoping that their massive investment on self-promotion will pay dividends. And they are generally the only ones with a marketing budget large enough to do it. But how do MBAs assess the success of an advert?
It is a more difficult task. The Kellogg MBAs used what they learned in class to score more than 50 ads throughout the show. They considered each advert and tried to assess its impact: for example, what will people recall? Is the branding clear?
By the end of the sports show, and after a substantial amount of Red Bull, the hope is that their minds are better suited to being able to evaluate adverts immediately after viewing them. It is a valuable skill in the marketing world and, ultimately, will help them land MBA Jobs after graduation (they hope).
Stephanie Cadieux, another Kellogg MBA student, thinks it was a worthwhile study. “Now, thinking through and using this ad-plan, I feel like I look at an advert from a much more strategic standpoint,” she said.
Marketing is a skill all b-schools will provide you with – and although there are specialist courses in the function, an MBA will provide you with a holistic view of all marketing concepts.
The marketing industry is as competitive as it is popular; 36 per cent more marketing roles were offered to MBAs last year, according to a survey by QS Top MBA. Senior marketers earn salaries of nearly $130,000, much higher than the global MBA average of about $100,000.
All business leaders will know the basic concepts like costumer focus. But what is more important is applying these concepts with speed and efficiency. It may be a little unorthodox, but teaching methods like the Super Bowl are critical in giving MBAs a competitive advantage when it comes to marketing skills.
Whether or not they would have preferred to just watch Seattle thrash Denver, however, is harder to predict.
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