Posted by Williams Helde Staff
The Buzz: February 4, 2013
The Buzz: The executive summary of the top things to be aware of this week.
- The Super Bowl of Advertising
1) It’s impossible to avoid all of the talk about the Super Bowl and Super Bowl commercials today. So here’s my quick two-cents:
Wins:
•Samsung
•Budweiser Horse Story
•Dodge Ram God Made A Farmer
•Audi Prom
•Tide Montana Stain
•E*Trade (I just love the E8Trade baby)
•Best Buy Amy Poehler
•Blackberry Z10 (yes, I actually liked this one)Bad:
•I’m hesitant to even spend a moment to acknowledge the GoDaddy ad, but I wonder how much that nerdy kid got paid to do that spot. At least it was on brand…
•Coke – big disappointment
•Bud Light – I loved the superstition ads, but the Stevie Wonder (huge fan) ads didn’t do it for me
•Gangnam style – I wonder how many brands got pitched this idea and turned it down
•Oreo – meh…
•VW Get Happy – I didn’t like the overall concept, but didn’t have an ethical issue like some people did - Facebook Tests Suggested Pages
• Facebook is testing “Suggested Pages” in news feeds, giving brands extended reach outside of those who already Like their pages.
Read more - Microsoft Surface Pro Releases This Friday.
• The Microsoft Surface Pro is much more of a laptop that the RT (which has a lot of limitations, namely that it can’t run all the same software that a PC can run). I think it will do better, but there’s a lot of competition in the Ultrabook market right now.
Read more - Tax Season Heats Up
• We may think of Christmas, elections, and 3-day weekend holiday sales as big advertising events, but we may not think of tax season as being a huge advertising event, but it is. A lot of money dumped into the market in a short period of time, and the battle is heating up. Even if you’re not in the tax space, the increased demand can increase prices and hurt performance.
Read more - Apple Pushes Forward Despite Being Ablaze
• Despite everyone seeming to think that Apple is going out of business (I don’t get the fuss), Apple just surpassed Samsung and is now the #1 smartphone manufacturer in the US. In related news, Samsung killed it at the Super Bowl yesterday.
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