It’s a big deal to be a Super Bowl advertiser. After all, not just any company has the $5 million or so that Fox is reportedly charging for a 30-second spot during this year’s Super Bowl laying around.
But for Wix.com, the web development company that is advertising during the game for the third straight year, the exposure during the game isn’t enough to justify that large outlay. Wix figured it could only justify the outlay if it could find more ways to garner attention before and after the Super Bowl.
That’s why last week Wix used Facebook Live and YouTube Live to air a teaser of its Super Bowl ad. Both Facebook and YouTube highlight when a brand a consumer follows is “live,” and with 3.2 million Facebook likes, 3.2 million Facebook follows and more than 50,000 YouTube channel subscribers, a lot of consumers were alerted about its video.
The action-packed cinematic video, which runs a little more than a minute, features movie star Jason Statham. The teaser and the Super Bowl ad are part of a broad campaign that will feature a series of short films directed by Louis Leterrier, director of “The Transporter,” which stars Statham, and “The Incredible Hulk.”
The idea is for the web development company to “tell a story by ourselves,” says Omer Shai, the company’s chief marketing officer. Last year the company’s Super Bowl ad featured characters from “Kung Fu Panda,” and its 2015 ad featured retired football stars like Brett Favre, Emmitt Smith, Terrell Owens, Larry Allen and Franco Harris.
For Wix, Facebook Live and YouTube Live helped the brand attract attention that was easily quantifiable. The live video also added another layer to its message, Shai says, which helped itattract attention from both consumers and the media.
“It built brand awareness,” he says, noting that within 24 hours “millions” of users had interacted with the campaign online.
Beyond the initial live effort, Wix is using video ads on Facebook and YouTube to promote the campaign. Those ads are crucial to the campaign’s ultimate success, Shai says. Expanding the scope of a Super Bowl ad is part of a broader trend. A recent Nielsen study showed that Facebook complements TV ads by helping marketers reach an additional 5% of the population that would otherwise miss a typical TV campaign.
Among younger demographics, namely 18-24-year-olds and 25-34-year-olds, the effect is even more pronounced as Facebook provides an incremental 22.6% and 14.0% lift, respectively.
Getting the attention of those consumers is key to Wix’s campaign being “ROI-positive” just as Shai says his 2015 and 2016 ads were.
“We’re a public company and so we have to be careful about how we spend our money,” he says.
Wix doesn’t share details about its marketing budget, however, Lior Shemesh, the company’s chief financial officer, said during the company’s first quarter earnings call that the spot was an “anchor branding campaign that actually lasts all through the year.”