Focus Groups in vogue again, thanks to Super Bowl

I feel so vindicated.  Which almost makes up for yesterday’s Packer-less Super Bowl.

After last year’s event, I announced the Top E-Holes of the Super Bowl.  Most of the winners, especially the Grand Super Bowl E-Hole — Groupon — had declined to conduct Focus Groups to pre-test their commercials.  My rant was about just that; the utter folly and pure arrogance of taking such a huge chance with their brand.  Given Groupon’s $377 million in funding, why hadn’t they spent the mere $20,000  to do a couple of groups? Simply as brand insurance, if you will.  Like duh. Ask the customer?

I would have been happy to take on a juicy new Groupon project, and of course always delighted to visit Chicago when the snow flies and black ice proliferates.

Oh what a difference a little joking about Tibet makes.  After the Groupon social media firestorm, this year smart marketers returned to their tried-and-true market research toolkit.  The Wall Street Journal reports that companies such as Hyundai to Bridgestone to Chevy conducted Focus Groups in advance of the broadcast. Now that viewers are tapping into Twitter and Facebook in mind-blasting numbers (Madonna’s performance during the halftime show saw an average of 8000 tweets per second), checking in with your customers in advance makes even more  sense.

Still, it’s always something. Yesterday’s reigning hashtags #Clint Eastwood and #Halftime in America were today’s brouhaha, both for questions about the star’s politics, and for the commercial’s mysterious removal and return.  IMHO, the spot and Clint were genius — kudos to the creatives at Wieden + Kennedy who pulled off this new classic.  Extra kudos for the concept of Visual Viralizing:  Share the video from the Chrysler YouTube channel and see how far across the country your Tweets and reshares reach. Brilliant.

Local Boy Clint Eastwood Scores Big at the Box Office with Gran Torino.

When you live in Carmel, you expect ex-Mayor and exemplary Carmelite Clint Eastwood to perpetually raise the bar with every new project. He, along with dazzling yet down-to-earth wife Dina. does it in our podunk paradise of a community with his generous financial and emotional support for worthy causes. He does it creatively in a myriad of intriguing ways, from his business acumen to jazz musicianship. And now, this weekend’s boffo box office set a new personal best at the North American box office on Sunday as ” Gran Torino “ raced to No. 1.

Hint: Oscar nomination ballots are due shortly.

The quirky drama, in which the 78-year-old actor/director plays a grumpy old man who takes on some neighborhood thugs Dirty Harry-style, earned $29 million during the three days beginning Friday, Warner Bros . Pictures said, beating out the Kate Hudson/Anne Hathaway bridezilla chick-flick Bride Wars.