Advertising’s most-anticipated event is fast approaching, and with it comes a US football game.
To get on board with the fun of this year’s Super Bowl and generate some interesting data points, Initiative has once again rolled out its Marketing Multi betting platform.
The Marketing Multi-betting platform, which was built by Initiative’s cultural analytics department, crowdsources predictions from industry experts across the world and combines it with generative AI to provide a multi-market with live odds updates every day.
“When you think about the Super Bowl, the ads are almost as much of a draw card as the game itself,” said Chris Colter, chief strategy and product officer of Initiative.
“What we think is a bit more interesting is translating that into putting your money where your mouth is. The Superbowl is such a good litmus test for the zeitgeist of things that are happening in culture. How do you take those trends and have a bit of fun with them and see how many of them you can get right and get the chance to take home a Super Bowl ring in the process.”
Participants can bet if an outcome will occur (yes or no) and how many times they predict the outcome occurring. Much like a real betting multi, scoring is based on probability, with the final odds from each day added to a punter’s daily score calculation. The person with the highest cumulative score earns the ‘Marketing-Multi Super Bowl Ring’.
“It looks, for all intents and purposes, like a Super Bowl ring but it’s the finest pewter with the best glass diamond that $24.99 On Temu can buy you,” said Colter.
The major change to the platform for 2024 is the new AI-powered ‘match insights’ to guide first-time betters. The generative AI tool will use historic Super Bowl advertising trends and live web results to enable people to better understand the likelihood of each outcome.
“It is always a really interesting insight into how in touch with culture as an industry we are. There are always some fascinating outliers. Then, equally, after the game, you always find these things that no AI or machine could have ever predicted.
“We’ve kind of put together what chat GPT recommends will happen and what the odds they would have put behind it, which means that this has been more informed than ever before, which is exciting for us.”
TV Ratings: How many people viewed the Super Bowl Last Year?
As the Super Bowl approaches, Initiative will update the market on what trends the Australian ad industry thinks will happen, which Colter says always produces some interesting data points.
“When the betting market closes, we can show what the Australian market thinks different ads are going to appear. For example, all these people think that it’s a sure bet that Taylor Swift isn’t going to appear in any ads this year. Or this many people put money behind Bluey appearing in an Outback Steakhouse ad. We go through the process of watching the game and telling the ads up and reporting back and then you get how many people got it right.”
When asked about previous Super Bowl campaigns that have stood out to him while Initiative has done the Marketing Multi, Colter pointed out one in particular that stands out.
“It’s always like the random ads like the QR ad, that was just a QR code on the screen bouncing around. No betting market would ever have that. Sometimes you think things are guaranteed, such as there’s going to be three brands that do big nostalgic ads, and that doesn’t happen and you’re like, wow. I almost thought I could bet the house on that because it’s such a trope of the Super Bowl. I remember back in the election year, we thought there were going to be so many more politicised commercials, and they just really weren’t.”
Speaking on the impact that Super Bowl ads have on the Australian media and advertising landscape, Colter said that there is a trickle-down effect of the trends established during these campaigns that make their way to Australia.
“To connect with culture, they’ve got to understand the culture, the current zeitgeist and what matters and what people want to see. I’ve always found it to be a really good trend-predictive tool that will trickle down to Australia. The QR code was a polarising execution because it wasn’t “creatively brilliant” although it was a highly creative bet for them to think of making it look like a screensaver. When they did that, it legitimised the fact that you can have performance in a brand-building environment. We started seeing more of that trickle down into the Australian landscape. I think there’s going to be a whole bunch of ads that are made by AI because that’s the latest hot thing in culture and I can pretty much guarantee that there’ll be some in Australia throughout the next 12 to 24 months.”
The Marketing Multi is available at www.marketingmulti.au and is open to all agencies, marketers, media owners, or anyone simply wanting to have a punt and have some fun.