This Weeks Email Marketing Trend: The Super Bowl

By Michael Liang, MBA Class of 2012

Elite Email – a leading email-marketing service provider – analyzed email trends for the last week in January and found that “Super Bowl XLVI” was at the top of all trending topics. The ubiquity of digital advertising around the Super Bowl demonstrates how cheap and effective outbound marketing can be when done strategically. Outbound e-marketing communications such as email marketing are also an extremely fast way for businesses with limited resources to quickly launch a marketing campaign. As expected, both online and offline retailers have been launching email promotions in anticipation of the Super Bowl on February 5th, 2012. Bars and restaurants have also started sending out email marketing coupons in an effort to increase customers on game day.

This year’s “Super Sunday” features a rematch of the 2008 Super Bowl, with the New York Giants facing the New England Patriots. Organizations both large and small implemented key phrases such as “Super Bowl,” “New York Giants,” and “New England Patriots” in their email marketing. Many retailers that typically aren’t associated with with sporting events are finding creative ways to tie their promotions to the Super Bowl. Restaurant and bars are even using email marketing campaigns to offer customers free appetizers or deserts – just to get them in the door. Successful marketers, both traditional and digital, understand the draw and potential money that can be made off of an event as widely celebrated as the Super Bowl and use it to their advantage.

Questions for class: What are some of your favorite and least-favorite Super Bowl ads of all time? Why we’re they successful or unsuccessful, in your opinion?

Below is a video of this year’s Volkswagen Super Bowl commercial. Enjoy!