How The Big Game Is Driven By Big Data

 

By May Nguyen

At Bryant Park Hotel in NYC Thursday morning, Big Data-driven marketing company Zeta Interactive hosted a panel discussion around Big Data, and specifically how marketers are using it to drive impact. It was an impressive line-up of speakers that included former Apple CEO John Sculley; David Sable, Global CEO of Young & Rubicam; Jessica Gelman, Vice President of Customer Marketing & Strategy; The Kraft Sports Group — the owners of the New England Patriots; and Hooman Radfar, Chairman and Co-Founder of marketing firm AddThis. Zeta Interactive CEO David Steinberg moderated the panel

With Superbowl weekend upon us, much of the conversation referenced Superbowl commercials of days past and the most recent strategy to pre-release them.

In the age of social, the opinion was, to put a video on YouTube is not a pre-release so much as it is broadcasting. David Sable, Global CEO of Y&R spoke of today’s focus on number of likes and views on YouTube and a departure from yesteryear’s theme to inspire through the content created.

Apple’s “1984” commercial, aired during the 1984 Superbowl was screened. John Sculley, former CEO of Apple spoke of the strategy to not show the product during the commercial but to evoke emotions and curiosity.

All agreed that there is a need for advertising to be broad so as to influence a buyer far in advance of that decision. There is also the need to capture the wide ranging landscape that encompass a potential buyer including those who might buy, those who influence the decision and those who possibly influence.

David Sable posed the challenge to the panel that he wants to know if amongst all those likes and views, if his target audience are the ones engaging.  Today, that is unknown, but the promise of omni-channel Big Data seems poised to solve the issue.

Jessica Gelman, VP of Customer Marketing & Strategy of the Kraft Sports Group heads up marketing for the New England Patriots. The organization has crafted an acquisition strategy around social by funneling those fans into a data warehouse they can market too. The organization’s long term goal is to keep fans engaged and loyal far in the future of a good or bad season. Much of this is being done with data. The Kraft Sports Group looks at identifying predictive behavior. In one example, it could be identifying fans who might potentially drop off before they do so and specifically target message them.

Hooman Radfar, Chairman and Co-Founder of AddThis sees the power of social in the speed to which marketers can react to consumer conversations. Since social is increasingly measurable, today the data informs decision making. The hopeful evolution is that data will drive discovery and lead to those a-ha moments of true insight and foresight.

This recent rundown by marketing firm Baseman gives an overview of other news about how Big Data is impacting the Big Game:

The much-hyped Super Bowl is just days away and we are certainly seeing the impact Big Data has on such a colossal event. From the value of advertising and how brands are choosing to market, to predicting the outcome of the game here are some of the biggest headlines surrounding this year’s Super Bowl.

Why Drop $4 Million on a Super Bowl Ad When You Can Buy into Big Data?

In this article, originally posted on Upstart Business Journal, Lisbeth McNabb provides her take on how brands can benefit from marketing to targeted groups of customers well before the Big Game. Read the full article here to find out how Big Data can change your whole marketing plan before the event.

Study: 80% of Super Bowl Ads Don’t Help Sales

Piggybacking off the views expressed by Lisbeth McNabb in the previous article, here we see documented proof that “the $4 million advertisers spend for a 30-second Big Game ad actually buys a much bigger chance that their ads won’t work”. Do the Super Bowl ads serve any benefit to the brand? Yes. The highly anticipated ads do a great job of entertaining their potential customers and creating brand awareness; however, some brands would do well to consider alternative advertising methods. Read the full article to discover which brands fared well on both branding and purchase intent.

Super Bowl XLVIII: Big Data Takes Over the Big Game

SAP has lit up New York’s Times Square with a number of Super Bowl statistics, but what do they all mean? Can they predict the game? According to Jonathan Becher, SAP chief marketing officer, the plays and the outcomes are only part of the prediction. Watch this video to find out how much fan emotion can influence a game and which team has the advantage right now. For more information on how Big Data has transformed the Super Bowl, visit the SAP Super Bowl Stats Zone.

Based on what we learned at the Zeta event and all the other related news, it certainly seems that Big Data will have big implications moving forward for just about everything, including (and especially) marketing.