I know I should just ignore it, but for the record, this quote from Tim Calkins seems ridiculous to me.
Pepsi’s break from the big game does carry a risk, branding experts say, because consumers have come to expect entertaining ads from the company.
“It’s a bit of a gamble to walk away from such an iconic event that has been such a big and critical part of their marketing program,” says Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Ill. “I think there could be a bit of backlash.”
[Click to continue reading Pepsi’s Drinks Will Sit Out the Super Bowl – WSJ.com]
Background, Pepsico is forgoing wasting lots of money on 2010 Super Bowl advertising1, and placing the budget instead in online marketing, and in so-called cause marketing
Under the program, Pepsi will award grant money for community projects proposed and selected by consumers, such as helping high-school students publish books to develop their writing skills. Pepsi says it has earmarked $20 million of its ad dollars for the grants next year.
Anyway, back to Professor Calkins: is he really claiming that because Pepsi isn’t going to spend $3,000,000 for a :30 2010 Super Bowl spot, that consumers are going to riot in the street, pitching cases of Pepsi One in Monroe Harbor? Consider me skeptical. Can you tell me, unprompted, which corporations advertised in Super Bowl 2009 and who didn’t? I doubt it. Even someone like myself who records the Super Bowl but then skips the actual game to watch the advertisements2 can’t recall, unprompted, who ran a spot and who didn’t. So what kind of backlash is Professor Calkins expecting?
Footnotes:- according to a TNS Media Intelligence chart included in this WSJ article, PepsiCo has spent $138,000,000 on Super Bowl advertising since 1987, plus another $53,000,000 advertising other PepsiCo brands like Sierra Mist [↩]
- in theory anyway, we usually end up watching a few moments of the game itself, and only watching about 1/4 of the commercials [↩]