Lack of Super Bowl Ad URLs Due, Perhaps, to ABC Cencorship
Joe Jaffe says he heard from a source the reason there were so few URLs in Super Bowl ads was because ABC representatives visited each of the advertisers' sites and if they deemed the content to be too racy, URLs were not allowed in the individual advertiser's ad. While Jaffe states he has not been able to confirm his sources claim, nor have we, it certainly is a plausible explanation for the lack of URLs in ads. Afterall, why wouldn't a marketer want to extend the value of their marketing dollars by driving people to additional marketing messages.
If this turns out to be true, it certainly opens up a very big proverbial can of worms in terms of the power a network has over controlling its advertisers' content. Of course, any network has every right to refuse any ad for any reason they choose but disallowing so many URLs from so many large and trusted brands wreaks of overbearing oversight.
Comments
Yet, they allowed the godaddy.com url with a wink???
Aren't we past the point where every single piece of communication needs to have a web address on it? Isn't it a given that Burger King has a presence at burgerking.com, or do we really need to tell people that? Seems like a no-brainer.
Hence the likelihood this may be an urban myth.
Indeed re Urban Myth.
Jill - to your point, isn't this the same thing as saying, "everyone know who we are e.g. Budweiser, so why advertise at all?"
Interesting ... would not be surprised given the climate in the US.
However, there are some agencies that still don't see the value of a URL in a commercial. For example, on some commercials that my employer recently created for the Olympics, I was told by our agency following my impassioned argument to include our URL at the end, that since there was no "specific call to action" in the commercials there was no need for a URL.
After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I said, "But isn't the URL the call to action? Or, even better, an invitation to continue a conversation."
No response from the agency.
I can't believe this would happen