Get Interactive SuperBowl Fans!

Superbowl XLVI Sunday was the single biggest day for television advertising of the year within the US, pulling in 111.3 million viewers making it the most-watched television program in U.S. Television history (Zurawik, 2012). With television ad spots costing roughly $3.5 million for 30 seconds, the amount of effort and strategy put into these advertising spots are incredible. However, in a new era of relationship marketing I was baffled to see only one advertisement truly offering the Superbowl television audience a way interact to its new product after the game was over; The brand new Chevrolet Sonic Commercial.

LetsDoThis.com is the home base website for the new Chevrolet Sonic in an entertaining and engaging way for consumers which focuses on the new concept of invertising, the act of persuading consumers to want to invite your advertising into their lives without directly saying so. The first thing that you read when you get to the landing page of the LetsDoThis.com is “Like you saw on the Super Bowl, it’s been a fun three months for the Chevy Sonic. Check out Sonic’s first times in the Stunts section, then start playing the Game of Firsts, where you can win the Sonic just by doing your own Firsts.” Exactly as the introduction states, from here engaged consumers can browse through “first time stunts” for the Chevrolet Sonic by watching full length YouTube video documentation of the Sonic going skydiving, jumping from a ramp to do a “Sonic Kickflip”, as well as its appearance in a music video featuring OK GO, all for the first time in the cars interestingly personified existence. After watching Sonic’s “Firsts” videos, just as the introduction suggests you can begin interacting with the brand by playing the game of Firsts, which allows players to engage with the site and the brand by uploading photos of themselves doing some Sonic suggested “Firsts” to the website in a chance to compete with their friends, interact with the site, and hopefully win a free Chevrolet Sonic.

I believe this is a great example of interactive advertising particularly because it shows strong examples of its adoption to fit the relationship era of advertising and marketing. In a very highly fragmented media community where people are choosing what media they want, the Chevrolet Sonic campaign gave consumers the option to choose and interact with a diverse amount of media formats and media genres that the Chevrolet Sonic offered on the LetsDoThis.com website. Secondly, a technology filled environment where media noise can make it increasingly difficult for consumers to find and engage in interactively rich website, Chevrolet took advantage of timely societal events and complimented their new age relationship era based website with traditional television advertising during the Superbowl where 11.3 million viewers saw the advertisement for the Chevrolet Sonic and the LetsDoThis.com website motivating consumers to jump on their laptops to interact with the product. Lastly, the LetsDoThis.com website offers both a social and hedonic benefit for its engaged web consumers by offering the ability to compete within the “Game of Firsts” with their Facebook friends, as well by positioning the entire website and it’s activities around a positive, fun, and lively experience.

The definition of interactive advertising has still yet to be written. We all interpret it differently, which still leaves it in the grey. To myself, interactive advertising is a form of active consumer engagement with and advertisement and/or advertising campaign that typically, but does not always, require a two-way communication pattern between the consumer and a company where the consumer has sought out the advertisement in direct response to an experience that they’ve lived. In this new and involving relationship era, I do not personally expect interactive advertising to follow traditional norms and require it to be paid, however on the contrary it must be mediated otherwise how will anyone, advertisers or consumers alike, be able to distinguish the differences between simply digital gossip, or a mediated social response. Beyond it all, we live in and exciting new time, where social networking has become the norm, consumers actively seek advertising to build a stronger relationship with their favorite brands, and where the future of strategic communications is still quite uncertain, yet immensely bright.

Regardless of this interactive analysis, what did you think when you saw the Chevrolet Sonic Comercial? Did it cross your mind that you could go explore more online? Lastly, what is your favorite Chevy Sonic stunt as of right now?!
I’ll leave you right there, as well as my favorite stunt by my main man Rob Dyrdek!
Talk to you all soon,
Kevin C. Walker