Author Archives: Pavone Food Team

Last week we offered our recipe for a successful Super Bowl ad. As the founders and moderators of SpotBowl – a national web poll devoted to the big game ads – it’s a recipe we know exceptionally well.

Over the past 45 years, some Super Bowl advertisers have followed the recipe, while others … let’s just say they should probably stay out of the kitchen. The following is our take on the best and worst Super Bowl ads of all time (including a bonus highlight above from the 2009 game). We intended to focus solely on food and beverage spots, but some of the nonfood work was just too good – or too bad – to ignore.

Feel free to leave a comment expressing your opinion on these ads or just to let us know if your personal favorite (or least favorite) didn’t make the list.

SUPER BOWL AD WINNERS

5. Budweiser “Frogs” (1995) – The frogs made the King of Beers hip again and had an entire nation croaking the brand’s name.

4. McDonald’s “Showdown” (1993) – MJ versus Larry Bird in a game of Horse? You had us at “nothin’ but net.”  Read more...

Mention a bowl of punch to some people, and it conjures up mental images of spiking the punch at a high school dance or a questionable concoction at the office holiday party. Thankfully, both points of reference are outdated and cliché, but that hasn’t stopped the punch bowl from making a comeback over the past 12 months.

Instead of popping up at office parties and proms, punch has reasserted itself as a fun, festive drink (spiked or not) enlivening simple at-home gatherings with friends. And now, thanks to forward-thinking bars in cities across the nation, bowls of punch have become menu items for groups of friends hoping to tap into the timeless communal cocktail.

Brooklyn’s Clover Club, where the menu describes punch as “a large bore mixture of spirits, citrus, sugar, water and spice,” has been serving it by the bowlful for a while. Among the offerings, each of which serves 4-6, are a champagne punch and gin-based punch (both $46). Another Brooklyn bar, The Drink, offers a more robust selection (all $43), including a rum and cider wassail served piping hot. The West Coast, too, has adopted the trend, with a bevy of bars in Portland, Oregon, offering punches of various serving sizes and potency.  Read more...

Bad news for anyone who might still be mulling the decision to shell out $3.5 million for a Super Bowl ad in the February 5 game: NBC’s inventory is officially sold out.

NBC’s SVP of sales and marketing, Seth Winter, noted that the network has actually been sold out since Thanksgiving. But before you go and blow the $3.5 million you were saving to spend on a Super Bowl ad, there might still be an opening on the horizon. According to Winter, two signed sponsors are trying to back out of their Super Bowl commitment, forcing NBC to resell their spots to other, more adventurous, advertisers.

Despite the recent glut of car ads in the big game, the Super Bowl is still a food and beverage marketing bonanza, albeit mostly for beer, soft drinks and snacks. It’s a topic we’re intimately familiar with, considering our eight years of experience as the creators of the annual Super Bowl ad poll, SpotBowl. (In the past three years alone, our SpotBowl experts have done more than 400 radio, TV and print interviews.)  Read more...

The health and fitness world has been abuzz lately with what seems like one new celebrity after another being announced as the spokesperson of choice for various weight loss programs. It is, after all, the New Year, which represents the best time for get-in-shape marketing messages.

Among the most recent additions to the star-studded line-up of celebrity weight loss spokespersons:

•    Jennifer Hudson (Weight Watchers) – Perhaps the most heavily-marketed celeb spokesperson, the Oscar winning actress and pop star dropped 60 pounds with Weight Watchers. She currently appears in a number of TV ads for the company, including one special effects-laden spot (below) which features a slimmed down Hudson singing alongside her former heavier self.

•    Charles Barkley (Weight Watchers) – The NBA Hall of Famer challenges men – a gender not typically targeted by Weight Watchers or many other weight loss programs – to “lose weight like a man.” At his peak retired weight, the man formerly known as “The Round Mound of Rebound” tipped the scales at more than 350 pounds, almost 100 pounds more than his playing weight.  Read more...

We’ve been fascinated by the trend toward more natural and organic foods and beverages for many years, so when we stumbled across these statistics, we had to stop and take a closer look.

A report published last month revealed that the likelihood of purchasing natural and organic products declines as we age. We already knew that, but the extent of the drop-off is what made us put down our Newman’s Own Soy Crisps and take note.

While 57 percent of adults ages 18-34 live in households where natural and organic food and beverages are consumed, that number falls to just 36 percent among Boomers 55 and older.

The report cites a few other facts that we already knew, but are important to consider when marketing natural and organic products. Among the findings: the revelation that households with children also show higher natural and organic consumption, making young families a particularly important target market.

Natural and organic usage also increases with household income, but even in those households in the lowest income group, a substantial 39 percent of respondents buy natural and organic goods. The upshot? Helping lower-income and middle-income buyers make intelligent choices about when to buy natural or organic products could provide lasting brand equity for both manufacturers and retailers.