Mike Caguin and Eric Husband

The Super Bowl is the most anticipated and talked about event in the advertising industry. It’s our Oscars, Grammys and Fashion Week wrapped into one. We expect to see some of the best creative, soundest strategy and most effective marketing of the year. But with all the flash and hoopla, how does it affect the average marketer? What can the millions of marketers, business leaders and entrepreneurs take away on Feb 3rd?

First, they should ask, “What is my Super Bowl?” Instead of looking at the event as the advertising star-studded night it is, consider it just a platform, a launching pad that top tier advertisers decide (or can afford) to leverage.  Every marketer has a “Super Bowl” or big stage and you don't need $4 million plus (average cost of the Super Bowl media buy) to own it. While helping Caribou Coffee with a major rebranding effort, we approached the design of their coffee cups as their Super Bowl. After all, to the nation's second largest premium coffee shop, their cups actually garner the sort of impressions a commercial during the Super Bowl does. All of a sudden, the cup designs became a lead element in the campaign and everything followed.

And with Land O'Lakes, we treated their new mobile site as their Super Bowl. Today's busy Moms (and Dads) are turning more and more to mobile devices to plan and prepare meals, so we placed great emphasis on creating a user experience that was intuitive, simple and inspiring. After all, it will be used by millions of people.

Once you identify your Super Bowl, it might not reach hundreds of millions of viewers in one fell swoop—or feature the mishaps of Janet Jackson— but there are some things we can all learn from the big game that can be applied.

It's not just about showing up, it's about standing out.

Whether it's at a trade show such as CES, packaging on a store shelf, or something as simple as a sweepstakes—just think, what would happen if you treated it as if everyone was watching? Pretend for a second that USA Today is going to gauge your efforts with a meter the next day. That your family and friends are going to point out "I know the person who did that…" The reason so many Super Bowl spots are memorable isn't just because they cost a lot of money. It's because a lot of thought went into them. No one wants to disappoint.

Make sure it’s the right kind of memorable.

Too often, in their efforts to stand out, advertisers make the mistake of not linking their creative idea to the uniqueness of the product. They do a great job making people laugh, or maybe even coaxing a tear or goosebumps with a heartfelt message, but the viewer is unable to remember what brand moved them in the first place. Will your audience walk away your Super Bowl message the way you'd like?

Get the most out of your investment.

Two trends have emerged from advertising during the big game. First, creating buzz for your ad prior to game day is a great way to make your marketing dollars work harder. Can you tease your Super Bowl effort before it launches?

Second, advertisers are doing an increasingly good job of tying a social component to their spot, whether it’s an online game or asking viewers to vote for the ending of the spot on Twitter. By doing this they engage consumers, increase conversations and build buzz. Be sure you’ve employed all the tools in your marketing toolbox to promote your Super Bowl.

Bethany Iverson

As advertisers, we have incredible influence to move things forward and take on challenging issues of culture, society, technology and economics. We can spur honest conversations (even if they’re difficult), and create work that broadens discourse instead of reducing it.

In order to accomplish this, our industry needs diverse intellectual talent — people who see and experience the world in many different ways. But a disturbing trend is emerging: women and men who would have once pursued a career in advertising are being lured away with tempting offers from startups and tech companies (see 8 Reasons To Choose A Startup Over A Corporate Job). Attractive new job offers, coupled with a less-than-favorable reputation as an industry (advertising is the 10th most hated profession in the U.S. according to Gallup), means that advertising could be facing a very real shortage of diverse intellectual talent in just a few years’ time. A lack of talent means our industry’s point of view will become staid and our ability to create change will quickly fade.
 
The issue of talent is precisely what we set out to address in our recent collaboration with the 4A’s, a leading ad association looking to jump-start a dialogue with the next generation. The project was designed to share untold stories of real people who work in agencies. But before we could tell their stories, we needed to know what we were up against.

We began by talking with college students and young advertising professionals in order to understand the gaps that exist between students’ perceptions and employees’ reality. We asked similar questions of both groups and then compared their responses. The results were staggering: the things that students are most wary of are the same things young working professionals enjoy most.

In general, students believe that 1) You have to be a brilliant creative genius to make it in our field, 2) There aren’t enough ad jobs to go around for those who are interested, 3) Digital agencies are the only ones that work with new technology, and 4) Agencies are cutthroat, backstabbing places that eat their young.

Most of these perceptions are unfounded. First, young professionals told us that they thrive on the creativity in agencies, whether they’re an account executive or a copywriter. Second, they found jobs by landing internships, meeting the right people and having the right attitude, even when the job search sucks. Third, they work with emerging technology every day — it’s actually an area where they feel the most empowered. Finally, those just starting out in advertising told us story after story about how much they enjoy collaborating with coworkers, how welcoming agencies are, and how most of the folks they work with are driven to create great work rather than clutter the world with more garbage.

The disparity between perceptions and reality means that it's up to us to redefine creativity and show that there are many seats at the table, help students understand that finding the right internship is the first step toward finding the right job, communicate that technology is the lifeblood of every agency and an area where young talent rules the roost, and last but not least, show that advertising is the new team sport.

On the heels of our research came a new website, openadvertising.aaaa.org, designed to open up the walls of our agencies and welcome those who are skeptical, excited or curious about our field. The site features short videos from art directors, writers, strategists, analysts and account executives that show what a day in the life is really like, which we hope will dispel misperceptions along the way.

Colle+McVoy had the pleasure of creating four videos for the site that feature our employees. Take a peek at our stories (and the new OpenAdvertising site). We’d love to hear what you think about where our industry is headed and what we could do to make it better than it’s ever been before.