Three Marketing Lesson’s from the Super Bowl’s Socially Charged Commercials

By Lili Gil Valletta, Entrepreneur and Cultural Innovator

Beyond a surprising comeback by the Patriots and a never-before seen overtime game, Super Bowl 51 delivered many life and business lessons for us to treasure.

Despite the odds, Tom Brady did it again, showing us that beyond great skill, it takes resilience and heart to never quit and win. Also, advertisers were champions of social change showcasing a new undertone of purpose, emotion and connection going beyond the cute, hysterical and over-the-top creative from prior years.

Did we just witness the beginning of a new era in football and marketing? Yes indeed!  I believe a new approach and the strength of the human spirit because the big winner during this championship.

Here are three simple lessons we can all embrace and adopt in everything we do:

1.     Go Beyond Funny and Sexy: Audi’s strong women empowerment and equal pay commitment, Airbnb’s celebration of diversity and 84 Lumber’s “too controversial for TV” spot all demonstrate that socially conscious, deep and real issues transcend catchy and clever tactics from the past.
2.     Stand for Something Greater Than Yourself: The week after the Super Bowl we find ourselves feeling, crying and reacting with the “heart” to issues much greater than the brand’s themselves. Marketing is all about standing for something, and that something has the power to truly get to the heart, before the mind and wallet of your audience. Whether you agree or not with the issue at hand, we can all agree that (in the case of 84 Lumber for example) it sparked an emotion, and that’s what great advertising is all about.
3.     Know Your Market, Your Audience And What Matters: While a twitter war unraveled and numerous negative articles after 84 Lumber’s immigration focused spot, one thing is evident, they know who they want to appeal to. One in three professionals in the construction industry happens to be Hispanic and according to Pew 76% of ALL Americans consider undocumented immigrants hard-working and honest people. While the brand clearly explained that they are by no means advocating for the hiring of undocumented workers, they embraced a personal and emotional matter for most Latinos to demonstrate the grit and determination they value as a company. Risky for some, but likely to be the product of careful analysis of the matters that matter to their key target audience.

In this era of polarizing messaging and the irony of division while our country rapidly approaches a majority-majority status, there is no better time for brands to align their resources for impact greater than themselves. Talking about features and benefits is boring, consumers are people who deeply care about real issues and the time is now for organizations to stand out and go after purposeful profits!

Lili Gil Valletta is an award-winning entrepreneur, business strategist and cofounder and CEO of CIEN+ a cultural innovation company. She is a weekly independent TV contributor to Fox News, CNN en Español, among other networks and an advocate to women and minority businesses as creator of Dreamers Ventures, member of the World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders, Harvard Kennedy School Women’s Leadership Board and a mentor to the Stanford Latino Entrepreneur Leaders Program.