Reaching employees at the Super Bowl

When a marketer advertises during the Super Bowl, what kind of message is it sending to its internal audience, its employees?

This is an especially pertinent question in our current economic climate as businesses struggle with sinking revenues and profitability. Lay-offs at the larger companies – the kind that advertise during the Super Bowl – are becoming everyday news lately. And those that are not cutting staff are asking their employees to pinch pennies.

So when that same penny-pinching company spends millions of dollars on Super Bowl advertising – which this year will cost about $3 million for a 30-second spot – do employees resent it and see it as hypocritical, contrary to a climate of cost cutting? Perhaps. But there’s another angle to this. And while the decision to forego high profile advertising in the name of cost-savings may seem obvious, it really isn’t.

According to the Wall Street Journal (Nov. 11, 2008) this is a question that FedEx is wrestling with right now. The package-delivery giant has advertised in each of the past 12 Super Bowls and has reserved a slot for the 2009 game, as did a number of other advertisers. In fact, NBC’s inventory of ad spots was sold out in September – before the financial meltdown.

But FedEx has not confirmed its buy and, a spokesperson says, it is concerned that spending such an exorbitant amount of money when it’s “asking employees to do more with less” will not be received well. [Update: FedEx has decided not to advertise in the Super Bowl.]

I remember, years ago, a beautiful advertisement for Porsche in a number of glossy magazines. The ad featured a large double foldout with a schematic cut-away of the Porsche 911 and intricate airbrush graphics detailing all the unique engineering that makes a Porsche a Porsche.

At the time – when I was a neophyte in the marketing business – I doubted the very expensive advertisement sold many cars. But a wiser marketer explained it a different way. The ad wasn’t meant so much to sell new cars as it was to confirm to Porsche owners that they had made the right decision.

It gave owners a private little gloat, and made them proud of their decision – and their exceptional machine. It provided them more information about their cars than they had ever gotten, facts and details that underlined the thrill they experienced using the product.

In the same way, advertising a product or service in bad economic times may, on the surface, seem frivolous and wasteful, especially to the insiders who are having to deal with the effects of belt-tightening. And so a case can certainly be made for skipping the Super Bowl and putting those millions to better use inside the company and/or assuring continued customer support.

Yet, the opposite case can also be made. A high-profile Super Bowl ad, if done right, can send a message of strength, determination, conviction, and renewed faith in the firm’s future. It says “we’re in it for the long haul, come what may. We’re not going anywhere.”

That’s certainly an important message to the employees as they fight to keep the firm profitable and worry about their vulnerability in tough financial times. It can steel their resolve when they get a morale boost like that. Like the Porsche ad, it can seal the deal with the employees.

But make no mistake about it: it’s a delicate decision, one that needs to be thought out in the larger context of marketing goals and the company’s long-term strategic direction, just as does the tone of the advertisement. While the decision is often made by the chief marketing officer and his/her team, another voice ought to be heard in that process: the employee communications professionals.

Questions about the value of the highly visible advertisement in the context of the internal climate must be posed and considered in terms of, not only the ultimate decision of whether to advertise but how to advertise, the content, and the tone. The wise marketer will accommodate and honor that input. The company will be stronger for it, regardless of the ultimate decision.