Did Kanye West's Super Bowl commercial actually work?
Answered independently in 4 episodes. Every line below is verbatim from the transcript, timestamped to the moment it was said.
What the archive says
01Budweiser skipping the Super Bowl and putting money toward vaccination efforts generated coverage in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Boston Globe and more, likely worth hundreds of millions of impressions. source →
02Budweiser is ending a 37-year Super Bowl run and redirecting an estimated $10 to $15 million in media into The Bigger Picture, a short documentary on frontline workers receiving the vaccine. source →
03Emotional storytelling still outperforms: Google's 'Javier in Frame' pulled 42 million YouTube views after the game, roughly 25x the next closest Super Bowl commercial. source →
04A direct-to-consumer brand with worldwide shipping can justify a Super Bowl buy: Kanye's reported $7 million spot driving $19 million in sales still wins even at break-even, because the product on people's feet generates a second wave of referral sales. source →
What was actually said
Well, if you ask anyone, does advertising work on you? They all say exactly. Those ads don't work on me, but I did like that commercial.
So 42 million people have gone and watched that spot since the Super Bowl 25 times more than any other commercial played. That's because it has impact if people want to go watch it yet and shared it.
We're having fun. Doesn't matter. Yeah I was disappointed overall In the Super Bowl ads for this year and here's why um, I like the fact that we did pivot from the seriousness and pandemic stuff I appreciated that.
4 episodes answer this
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