Donuts and Practically Free Super Bowl Ads with Bodil Eriksson
This episode explores the concept of triggers, internal or external drivers that make us tick. Kicking off with some deliciously smelling donuts, we talk to the former head of Volvo North America and learn how the best car Super Bowl advertisement ever went down…without paying for a Super Bowl ad.
Key Links
- Hooked by Nir Eyal and Ryan Hoover
- The Cannes Lion summary of “The Greatest Interception Ever“
- Cinnabon’s scent marketing strategy
Episode Transcript
Eytan Buchman:
My name is Eytan Buchman and you’re my favorite listener for episode four of Two Minute Marketing. This episode, we’re starting with donuts.
When walk you into a mall, you’ll eventually encounter the smell of a Cinnabon. Cinnabon brilliantly places every store in a mall outside of the food court, with their ovens near each store’s entrance, to pull you in by your nose.
The rest is calorific history.
According to Hooked, by Nir Eyal and Ryan Hoover, that odor is a trigger. See, people don’t just decide to do things, they’re driven to do them by either external triggers – like an Eytan asking you to share this podcast- or internal triggers, something in our mind that says buy that drink, refresh that Facebook feed, click that button.
And, for context, every paid advertisement – online or offline – is a trigger.
Today, we’re going to explore a brilliant advertising move that hijacked one of the most expensive paid advertisement opportunities ever.
Bodil Eriksson:
My name is Bodil Eriksson. During 2014 and ’17, I was executive Vice President at Volvo Cars North America, heading up product marketing brand and communications.
Eytan Buchman:
Now most Super Bowl brands pay a huge price tag for that tv ad spot – $4.5 milling for thirty seconds in 2015…and that’s without the production costs. But Volvo North American didn’t really have the budget to play in that league. It didn’t stop them.
Bodil Eriksson:
Late on evening, two, two and a half months before the Super Bowl, I got a call from Tor Myhren, then Global Creative Leader, Grey. [00:00:30] He told me the team at Grey had come up with a brilliant idea for Volvo cars and Super Bowl. I laughed because to be part of the Super Bowl was simply out of reach for us. We had very small marketing budgets, but the team had come up with a truly great, brilliant idea. It all built upon smart, smart and lovely idea of making people think about Volvo cars whenever there was any other car manufacturers advertising.
Eytan Buchman:
You catch that? Volvo was going to make every other car commercial a trigger for their brand.
Bodil Eriksson:
We actually tweaked it further from us from Volvo and saying that, “No, let us ask people to tweet to us why they want to give away a Volvo car to someone they love.”
Eytan Buchman:
In other words, if you tweeted #VolvoContest and the name of someone you wanted to give a Volvo to during any other car commercial…they might win a brand new car.
But you still need to get the idea out there, right? So Volvo opted for some much more affordable pre-Super Bowl ads. And then, they got a windfall.
Bodil Eriksson:
Jimmy Kimmel made even a joke about it in his show and gave us a lot of attention, which really spurred the campaign and helped us to get so much attention during the games.
Eytan Buchman:
The campaign crushed it.
Bodil Eriksson:
We trended three times on Twitter that evening. Volvo cars had never trended on Twitter before. It was love. …It was the biggest success we have had in Volvo cars and it absolutely helped us both to come back as a brand, but also helped the sales. So it was a great event.
Eytan Buchman:
It was more than great. Volvo saw 50,000 tweets in four hours, trended globally on twitter – while no other car brand did – had a 70% increase in sales the next month and saw $200 million in earned media impressions.
They found the right trigger and jumped on it for all it was worth.
So get out there and think -what is the trigger that can push your users to do something. Where are your users? And what do they need to see, hear or read to come running back to you.
And, while you think about it, head to buchman.co.il for more on this amazing campaign. Or just go buy a Cinnabon.