On Shock Top and T.J. Miller | Thinking About Advertising
If you don’t know who T.J. Miller is, then this post is for you. If you work at Anomaly Toronto, and you know the person handling strategy behind the Shock Top Super Bowl ad, then this post is also for you.
Yesterday I watched the Shock Top Super Bowl teaser — which may sound crazy to you but I’m moving towards a career in advertising so it’s not really.
In the teaser we’re introduced to the spokesperson, T.J. Miller. He leads the commercial with…
“Hi. I’m me. If you don’t know who I am, then I don’t know what’s wrong with you. I’ve permeated American culture, really global culture, so intrusively through voiceover, television, film and advertising that… I mean… you must really live in a very reclusive, strange shack somewhere in North Dakota…”
Now, I’m a relatively in-tune twenty-five year old. I keep up with tech, movies, comedy, ads, coffee, booze, social, music… the whole gambit. That said, I’m willing to admit that I do not know who T.J. Miller is.
I hope you’re still with me.
To be clear, I do not live in a shack in North Dakota — I live in Paris, but I’m American (writing this post from the U.S.,) and I‘m in tune with what is going on in the states. Location aside, I wanted to assure myself that I wasn’t really out of touch (or prevent myself from being out of touch in the future, i.e. FOMO) I simply Googled “T.J. Miller” and was pleasantly surprised that I was familiar enough with his work — I’ve seen a few of his movies but to be honest I didn’t recognize him by face or name.
I didn’t think anything of it, I went back to watching the commercial, enjoyed it and then went on about my day.
It hit me this morning that there is a moment there — an opportunity to seize — that moves this commercial from a simple viewing experience to the next level. An engaged moment where I was actively seeking the information presented. I Googled. That is the moment we as advertising professionals must capitalize on — an engaged consumer of information has moved as a result of our commercial.
I know what Shock Top is. I wasn’t Googling for the product, I was Googling for T.J. and I would argue that: to Anomaly, this moment is an unintentional (was it intentional? I can’t tell) opportunity to reinforce the product. A programmatic buy that targets searches for T.J. Miller and displays Shock Top ads, copy and images in the search results will go a long way to driving engagement and retention.
A few examples: Youtube pre-roll for Miller’s standup and R-rated movies, Adwords placements in search, buys on Pandora/Spotify/audio streaming sites where his comedy has a heavy audience, Shock Top/Miller mobile landing page for Shock Top, social integration on Miller’s and Shock Top’s social channels.
Like I said, these may be in the plans, but there are search opportunities being missed since the teaser is out and in the news.
This is how I think about advertising. If you have a spot for me on your agency roster. Get in touch. www.coupercox.com