A Couple Quick Lessons From Super Bowl Ads

“Success is like anything worthwhile. It has a price. You have to pay the price to win and you have to pay the price to get to the point where success is possible. Most important, you must pay the price to stay there.” – Vince Lombardi

While I didn’t have any personal stake in the game on Sunday and am generally a college football fan, I definitely enjoyed watching Green Bay win.  I’ve always liked many of Vince Lombardi’s quotes, and one of my first consulting projects was working with the Oneida Indian tribe in Green Bay. 

That being said, I (like many others) enjoy watching the advertisements.  In reading a post-game summary of the commercials in USA Today, there were two interesting points:

1. One of the two winners (it was a tie) was for Doritos and was based on a customer created advertisement (which cost him $500 to produce). 
2. Four of the top 10 advertisements (Doritos x2 and Pepsi x2) had been posted on Facebook and YouTube for days.

I think this presents several interesting scenarios in healthcare marketing:

1. Why don’t we have more customers submitting and creating “advertisements” for us?  I personally would love to see 30-second spots by pharmacy users talking about why they chose mail order or a particular retail store.  Or, imagine a new mom talking about how great her experience was at a particular hospital.  [That seems a lot more compelling than the signs that tell me the number of births at a particular location.]
2. Maybe familiarity doesn’t breed contempt but rather trust.  Should we think differently about how we share information concurrently on different channels?  [Hint: YES]  Is there value in sticking with a theme for a period of time?  [IMHO – Yes]