While Super Bowl 50 ads featured everything from a puppybabymonkey selling soda to undercover dogs selling snacks, Centennial, CO-based distributor Arrow Electronics Inc. used the high-profile game to promote a more serious offering – aerospace and defense technologies.
During the company's 30-second ad, a machine built by LEGO maker Arthur Sacek constructed and launched a paper plane while John F. Kennedy's and Neil Armstrong's voices about the 1960s moon exploration could be heard in the background.
The ad closed with Arrow's tagline, "Five Years Out," a nod to its focus on building technologies for the future.
"At Arrow, we know the world of 'five years out' relies on small, forward-thinking parts put together with absolute precision," the company said.
Though Arrow's first Super Bowl ad appeared only in the Denver market, it speaks to a growing desire among B2B companies to broaden their marketing efforts and invest more heavily in branding. Arrow has advertised during the Final Four and nationally televised football games, as well.
"We find that those events, those sporting events, the audience is made up of a lot of key decision-makers over many of our customer sets," John Hourigan, Arrow's vice president of global communication, told The Denver Post. "We find it very useful to get our message across to an audience that is representative across customers, suppliers, current employees and potential employees."
Arrow's strategic decision to advertise during the Super Bowl underscores an important message from 2015 State of Distributor Marketing: Effective Strategy Solves Challenges. "Although marketing planning and strategy received the fewest responses to distributors’ biggest marketing challenge, it is perhaps the most critical. If distributors invested the time and effort in developing an effective marketing plan and associated strategies, the other marketing challenges would dissipate."
While most distributors won't spend on Super Bowl advertising, have you created a strategy to get your message across to the right audience?
