How to Create “Big Game”-Worthy Content

Imagine how crazy this sounds. Your audience’s interest in your commercials is so strong that you release previews of them in advance. And, because the audience wants the commercials to be longer than their standard length, you release extended cuts. You’ve created “big game”-worthy content.

The demand to consume these commercials has been such that you’ve even posted schedules of their airing in advance so that the audience will know what spots will run and when.

Interest is so high for these commercials that you deem it strategic to also provide a one-sentence description of each spot’s plot, theme, and highlights. Maybe even who’s in it. You even need to provide links so the audience can preview these commercials.

And all this becomes a red-hot talk-about with your station at the center.

Crazy indeed. Yet of course these sorts of things happen every year in the weeks leading up to the Big Game.

Average Won’t Do

Of course, if these commercials were of the “plenty of free parking” type, no one would care. The ongoing enthusiasm for them proves they’re not.

The most important thing in creating such ads is to find the sweet spot between what your brand stands for and what is culturally relevant, according to Marcel Marcondes, Global President of Beyond Beer and former Anheuser-Busch US CMO. But, he adds, this can be challenging because things change so fast.

These words are worth additional unpacking. If your message is to have power, it needs to be in sync with what you stand for as a brand. That applies at the station, talent, and sales levels. Likewise, your message needs to be relevant to the target. That seems almost too obvious, but it’s easy to fall into the trap of “checking something off the list” rather than ensuring you are filling the needs, wants, and desires of the audience.

Time to Add Rocket Fuel

With this as a base, add rocket fuel in the form of humor, heart, elements that are unusual, unique, and disruptive to drive up memorability and increase the overall entertainment value of your message.

Go further with icons, influencers, signature elements, taglines that are simple yet unforgettable (“We have the meats”), and simple storylines that can be iterated and thus extend the life of a campaign.

Capture attention in the first three seconds. Don’t save your best for later, but do have a beginning, middle, and an end.

Always speak with your brand voice.

Stick to a single message.

Marry your work to a social media campaign.

And of course, don’t forget a call to action.

You can see a combination of these elements in Bud Light Seltzer Hard Soda/Land of Loud Flavors with Guy Fieri here.

We’ll likely never pen a Big Game commercial, nor charge $6.5 million for a 30-second spot like NBC is doing for this year’s game, but we can certainly adopt what makes them successful to elevate our spots, promos, pitches, and breaks.

(c) 2022, Mike O’Malley, LLC

Photo by Dave Adamson on Unsplash