Why Super Bowl Ads Are (Mostly) Dumb, Learned Excellence & Scooby Snacks
Thanks for reading 🙏
Welcome to this Different Newsletter.
Disliked by many
De-platformed by LinkedIn
Re-platformed by LinkedIn
Enjoyed by few
🏴☠️
Why Super Bowl Ads Are (Mostly) Dumb
Prices for a 30-second 2024 Super Bowl ad cost between $6.5 million to $7 million bucks.
CBS says. They are sold out.
And they are dumb. Here’s why.
First: It is impossible to stand out.
The Super Bowl is literally the single hardest day to stand in the USA. Marketing is supposed to be rising about the noise. Not making more noise.
Second. 80% of Super Bowl ads produce zero new revenue.
One of our favorite expressions: Marketing that doesn’t produce revenue. Is called arts and crafts. (get’s a big reaction every time I post it).
That makes 80% of SuperBowl ads. Arts and crafts.
Third: No one remembers them.
Try this.
Right down 5 ads you like during the big game. Then at work tell some people about the 5. But don’t tell them which brand did the ad.
See if they can tell you. 🤔
Countless major brands will do radical (often dumb, sometimes fun/funny) things to stand out during those three hours. And it won’t matter.
As a fan, I enjoy them as much as the next beer drinking, pizza eating, football fan.
As a category designer & marketing guy my brain will scream like it always does during the Super Bowl (“You dumb fucks! Lighting $7 million bucks on fire 🔥)
So why do companies (really) buy Super Bowl ads?
CEO/Executive egos
CMOs want to show off for other CMOs
To make employees feel good
To make an ecosystem feel good (dealers/distributors/resellers/developers)
But.
Don’t be confused.
On Super Bowl Sunday you’ll see some fun, funny, thoughtful, creative ads. But you will not see (much) legendary category designing, brand building, revenue producing marketing.
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Things To Make You Go Hmmm…
Generative AI to Become a $1.3 Trillion Market by 2032
Generative AI products could add $280 billion of new software revenue
Growth in global ad spending to slow in 2024 to 5.3% (excluding U.S. political advertising)
The future of digital marketing is less funnels more (customer) communities
This time last year we were talking Chinese spy balloon
Tech valuations at 10-year low–but optimism should be at 5-year high
US labor market sizzles with blowout job growth, solid wage gains
'Stars are aligning' for IPO market in 2024
Patriots owner Robert Kraft bought antisemitism Super Bowl ad
Learned Excellence
The world’s best performers aren’t born that way. They may have innate, superior physical and intellectual traits.
But.
That’s not why they are champions.
The difference between good and great. Doing well and achieving excellence, isn’t physical.
It is entirely mental.
Entirely mental.
Eric Potterat, Ph.D., and Alan Eagle preach: If the world’s best performers learn excellence. So can everyone else.
They are authors of the great new book:
“Learned Excellence: Mental Disciplines for Leading and Winning from the World's Top Performers”
And these dudes are no joke. Not a bunch of arm waving, pablum babbling, hustle porn stars.
Eric, is a clinical and performance psychologist.
He retired as a commander from the US Navy after twenty years of service, the last 10 of which as the head psychologist for the US Navy SEALs. He also created the Navy SEALs' mental toughness curriculum. Never mind coaching countless elite athletes, gold medal winners, World Series champions, executives and high performers of all kinds.
Alan is an executive communications coach who worked with Google leadership for more than 15 years and he’s the co-author (with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt) of “Trillion Dollar Coach” about Silicon Valley legend Bill Campbell.
If you’re fascinated by this kind of work, pick up a copy of Learned Excellence
And listen to this real, different dialogue with Alan & Eric here:
🏴☠️
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Shalom.
Stay legendary my friend,
Christopher Lochhead
😎 🏴☠️
Copyright Category Pirates, LLC
Public Notifications, Legal Warnings
& Scooby Snacks
The creator of this Different Newsletter didn’t pay attention in class.
All Different Newsletters contain nuts 🐿
Before acting on anything you just read please contact your lawyer, doctor, message therapist, marriage counselor, accountant, yoga instructor, chiropractor, bar tender, bud tender, spouse, category designer and mommy.
There are (random) strategically placed spelling, grammar and formatting mistakes in this newsletter.
If you think Taylor Swift is breeding giant sharks with lasers on their heads to take control over beaches, then consider these strategic mistakes part of a secret code that unlocks Federal Government servers in Bumsquat Youdaho to the files that prove the The Statue of Limitations was created by Aliens.
If you’re not a Taylor Swift sharks person, the errors herein exist because Lochhead is lazy… and wants to write in an unfettered, real(ish) time way and an editor would slow the roll.
Please.
Pretty please.
Subscribe here to keep getting Different.
The creator of this Different Newsletter:
-can’t find his keys
-does not possess a GED
-was thrown out of school at 18
-was likely hangin’ out with Mary Jane
-is considered radically incompetent (by many)
-possess multiple learning differences (aka superpowers)
-and The Economist once called him, “off-putting to some”
Book reviewers on the internet have called his work:
“Very shallow”
“Incredibly mediocre”
“Easily one of the worst things I've had the displeasure of listening to.”
And one of the all-time greatest business book reviews:
“This book reads more like an MLM or cult brochure.”
🏴☠️
One person can supervise 'swarm' of 100 unmanned autonomous vehicles
Pigeon suspected of being Chinese spy released by police in India after being detained for eight months
Our real newsletter is called Category Pirates 🏴☠️
Thinking about thinking is the most important kind of thinking.
Much of the content in this Different Newsletter is lifted directly (or “inspired” greatly) from Category Pirates.
“Thought you'd never miss me 'til I got a fat city address”.
'I tried McDonald's spiciest ever burger - the only saving grace was the new McFlurry'
But it’s alright…now
In fact its a gas.
Ya its alright…
I’m Jumping’ Jack Flash
And its a gas, gas gas.
-The Stones
Have you ever worked out next to someone stinky at the gym?
Did you know starfish are body-less heads?
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... this is the part of Different, that is like the very end of a movie...
….where some directors throw in silly crap-o-lla
(Did you know that Thomas Crapper - a British plumber popularized the modern toilet category? That's why you take a "take a crap". )
.....for their own entertainment purposes, because they assume by this point, people have left the theater...
...but for some reason you're still reading...
…and I'm still writing...
(The is the mega AD/HD theatre part of today’s newsletter)
Want to have a legendary marketing career? Check out this podcast.
Everything is the way that it is, because somebody (like you) changed the way that it was.
Categories make brands.
Not the other way around.
Man Who Uses 37 Matches To Start BBQ Grill Pretty Sure He Could Survive Alone In The Woods Of Alaska
A Canadian farmer who previously had 30,000 chicks go missing in April, has now reported that he lost another 15,000 in mid-May.
If you're not enjoying this (different) newsletter, you're among the vast majority of people on planet earth.
If (by some breach of your better judgement) you are enjoying this Kentucky bourbon smooth read, with just the right level of AD/HD insanity…
you might get fired up about our real work:
books, paid/real newsletter, and/or podcasts.
Human Sperm adjust their swimming style
Marketing is sales at scale.
It's illegal to own just one guinea pig in Switzerland. (the government doesn’t want them to be lonely)
Is this newsletter still going?
Is a business newsletter allowed to have all of this bullshit at the end?
I think the bullshit at the end is longer than the actual content 🤔
How does he get away with that?
You might like this deep dive into “The Value of Your Value”
Have you seen the UK dating show where people get fully fucking naked and they show it ALL?
(It’s a kids show 😎)
The content about the content is more valuable than the content.
This Different Newsletter really ties the room together.
Never miss it. Subscribe here.
It is impossible for most people to lick their own elbow.
Hey, thanks for hanging out for the extra (silly) scooby snacks at the end...hope you have a legendary day…..
….let's hang out again soon 😎🏴☠️🙏
Hold Fast.
Published by Category Pirates.
Sponsored By Bad Tuna Industries.
Makers of Bad Tuna Butt Wipes™
It must be over soon?
Giraffes are 30 times more likely to get hit by lightning than people.