Outside of the World Cup and Olympics, the Super Bowl is one of the most watched viewing events on the planet. And given that most people no longer just do one thing at a time, many viewers are also planning to take to social media during the big game.
Some may not even watch the game itself, and instead interact on social platforms as part of the experience. Remember the lessons we learned in travel from Oreo's massive marketing coup back in 2013 when the Super Bowl was in New Orleans. There is real opportunity for the right time/right moment marketing move.
Facebook to facilitate real-time advertising
Facebook understands this behavior well, and has released a new ad product in advance of the game that allows advertisers to target specific clusters of users during the game.
Well, it's not necessarily a new video product, rather an update to the targeting that determines what ads are shown where. The social network will now use real-time filtering technology to match ads with content in real-time, while also providing customized clusters of users for advertisers to target.
The ads will also include Facebook's controversial autoplay video units.
This is a fundamental shift towards the Twitter model of real-time streams peppered with ads targeted to those real-time conversations, and suggests that Facebook is ready to explore more of that style of engagement with advertising.
We all know that Facebook is already using our behavior, content and demographic information to serve ads; this shift means that all of this could happen in real time.
This shift is especially meaningful to big brand travel marketers who may be in play for advertising during Sunday's game. The ability to take that ad and then effectively target users that are sharing content about that ad right after it airs is incredibly intriguing. Some brands are even creating war-rooms on game day in order to pump out fresh videos, ads and graphics that directly pertain to the most talked about topics.
Imagine a destination pushing an ad out related to its unique offering — after the ad airs, a Facebook user could mention how appealing that destination looked, and then the brand could either re-serve the same ad, or target an even more appropriate one given that user's unique characteristics.
Facebook has so much more information about users than Twitter, and so this shift towards real-time targeting of video ads based on content is going to be exciting for any travel marketer seeking to enhance engagement across channels and do a better job at proving the ROI for the business. And with the average price of a 30-second spot hitting a record $4.5 million for the Super Bowl, these sorts of alternative, real-time marketing efforts are ever more imperative.
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NB: Facebook shares image courtesy Shutterstock.