Cristel Russell Talks Super Bowl Ad Trends With Ad Age

Super Bowl advertisements represent the most expensive campaigns of the year for many companies. However, while still the biggest television audience, Super Bowl viewers aren’t the captive audience they once were. In an interview with Ad Age, Pepperdine Graziadio Professor of Marketing Cristel Russell talks about a new phase of growth for partnerships so brands can win back the attention of audiences. 

“This new age that we’re in — I call it transmedia — everything is interwoven, intertextual, and so consumers are on multiple social media platforms, they’re multi-screening,” Russell said in the interview. “It just was a matter of time before we saw more of these partnerships that just take people from one brand to another from one platform to another, and associate beer with a game, for example.”

Another challenge for brands is finding the right partnership, with Russell describing “semantic”, “complementary”, and “incongruent” fits. 

“It’s an extension of cross-promotion,” Russell said, adding, “Cross-promotion sounds like an ugly word now, but it’s essentially the same thing — a brand alliance.”

Read the full article in Ag Age.