This January, marketing mainstays like FedEx, General Motors and Pepsi announced that they would be opting out of this year’s ad extravaganza, the Super Bowl.

Adverting Age has recently run an article titled Super Bowl Shuffle: Why Marketers Will Shift to ‘Platforms’, which discusses the phenomenon of advertising and the Super Bowl.

The article claims that for those looking to gauge the health of the ad industry, Super Bowl advertising is a bit of red herring. CBS is charging about $2.5 million for 30 seconds of commercial time, and rightfully so. Rarely do you get so many Americans watching one event and actually enjoying the advertising. It is a tremendous opportunity for most brand marketers and it would be foolish to look at this year’s Super Bowl as proof of either the rejuvenation of the 30-second spot or the rejection of it.

There certainly will be advertising winners (and losers) on Super Bowl Sunday but let’s hope that the Monday morning quarterback chatter doesn’t obscure the larger shift at hand for marketers this year. 2010 will be the year of the “platform” for advertisers.

Unlike a website, banner, Facebook application or 30-second spot, a platform is an always-on digital environment that allows brands to run specific or multiple programs. The goal of a platform is to meaningfully engage consumers on multiple levels. For some brands, this means creating an experience with integrated commerce. For others, it means enabling consumers to connect with each other in valuable, unexpected ways.

But for marketers, the real winners this year will be the brands who have built these platforms to engage consumers well after this year’s Super Bowl becomes a distant memory. Here are some examples of the types of platforms that are being created and executed today:

• Community Action Platforms
• Crowdsourcing Platforms
• Commerce Platforms
• Brand Experience Platforms
• Social CRM Platforms

These are just a few examples of the kinds of platform moves brand marketers will make in 2010, but there will certainly be more — especially with the rise in mobile and emerging technologies such as “touch” and augmented reality. To read this article in its entirety, click here.

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