Stop making it harder for customers to engage & buy

Did anyone else notice the near lack of social media integration in Super Bowl ads this past weekend?  Only a couple ads included a specific and trackable call to action (including Dockers, whose site immediately went down in the minutes after their spot aired), and none that I could see referenced anything on Facebook, Twitter or any other social network.

With a significant percent of Super Bowl viewers simulateously on their computers, and a further opportunity to engage customers and prospects well after their 30-seconds-of-fame, I was surprised to see so few advertisers specifically invite viewers to continue the conversation.

Last night, Expedia brand manager Julie Lowe gave a good explanation at a local Super Bowl Ad Replay event:

"Big companies that spend money on Super Bowl ads have too many different and separated marketing groups, with not enough communication and coordination between them.  The brand or advertising teams likely managed the Super Bowl strategy largely on their own, without thinking about integrating efforts from the social media or direct teams that sit next to them."

Your company or marketing department may be organized into functional groups, but your customer doesn’t think that way.  Today’s increasingly multi-tasking customer requires a different way of operating, and a new level of cross-platform integration from marketers.

Your company just spent three million dollars on thirty seconds of air time.  Why not capture more value than that?

Of course, most of us aren’t running those kind of ads.  But how well does your marketing today take into account the multi-faceted ways customers want to interact with you and each other?  How easy are you making it for them to engage, share, participate – and buy?