Focus on the Family got Super Bowl buzz it wantedBy Bruce Horovitz, USA TODAY
Suddenly, the focus is off the family — and on the data.
One day after the evangelical group Focus on the Family aired its Super Bowl commercial — following a storm of controversy — it was clear on Monday that the group achieved its goal: a torrent of new attention for its website and its brand in social media land.
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"Our website is crashing," jokes Jim Daly, president and CEO of Focus on the Family. In fact, it would have crashed had the group not beefed up its servers in anticipation. After the ad aired, the site's traffic ballooned to 40 times its normal volume — with 50,000 unique visitors and 500,000 hits.
But the ad itself posted a low score in USA TODAY'S Ad Meter, a real-time consumer testing of the ads as they air. The ad featuring quarterback Tim Tebow and his mom, Pam, was ranked 54th of the 65 ads in the game by the panelists.
"People are searching for real meaning in their lives after the recession," says Robbie Blinkoff, a consumer anthropologist. "Focus on the Family hoped its ad would stand out as a values ad. Instead, it got lost in the shuffle."
But the enormous attention that the ad received before, during and after the game could become a case study for marketers. "We won long before the ad ever ran," Daly says. The data don't lie.
•Social media. Between Dec. 1, 2009, and Monday at 3 a.m., Focus on the Family generated more Super Bowl advertising-related social-media conversations than any other advertiser or brand — even more than Google, Anheuser-Busch and Doritos, reports Alterian SM2, a software marketing company that monitors social media.
Before the ad aired, negative comments and sentiment far outweighed positive, says Scott Briggs, director of business solutions at Alterian. By Monday at noon — hours after the ad aired — positive comments outnumbered negative ones by 53.4% to 47.6%, he says.
•TiVo. Focus on the Family snagged the game's third-most "engaging" rating (following top-ranked Doritos and No. 2 Anheuser-Bush), says Todd Juenger, general manager at TiVo. The ranking was made by looking for spots with the biggest viewership relative to the surrounding 15 minutes of programming.
•Subscribers. Since the ad aired, the organization has had 5,000 new subscribers to its magazine, Thriving Family.
•Viewership. The game on CBS was watched by 106.5 million people, surpassing the 1983 finale of M-A-S-H to become the most-watched television program ever, Nielsen reports.
•Consumer notice. CBS declined to comment on how many consumers contacted the network about the ad. But the advocacy group Women's Media Center says it knows CBS got at least 170,000 e-mails, calls and letters of complaint. "The Super Bowl is supposed to be a time we can come together," says Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women. "This ad introduced poison into that atmosphere."
But the advocacy group Americans United for Life Action has a "Support Tebow's Super Bowl Ad" Facebook page that's attracted 230,000 fans.
Data aside, Ad Meter panelists had strong reactions to the ad on Sunday.
"It makes me want to throw up," said Barry Rothman, 64, a data process worker from San Diego. "I don't think a political ad should be on during the game."
Joan Berkson, 48, a consultant from Rockville, Md., said, "I've had enough of Tim Tebow. The Super Bowl is not a suitable venue to be about his platform."
But Carlos Maximo, 22, a restaurant manager from San Diego, liked the ad. "Moms can feel connected to it," he says, and it "tries to instill a sense of family."
http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/admeter/2010-02-09-focusfolo09_ST_N.htm
