Despite a near collapse that required $45 billion in federal taxpayer bailout funds, Bank of America sponsored a five day carnival-like affair just outside the Super Bowl stadium this past week as President Obama decried wasteful spending on Wall St.
Brian Ross investigates the bankers who sponsored Super Bowl festivities.The event – known as the NFL Experience – was 850,000 square feet of sports games and interactive entertainment attractions for football fans and was blanketed in Bank of America logos and marketing calls to sign up for football-themed banking products.
The bank staunchly defended its sponsorship, saying it was a “business proposition” and part of its “growth strategy.”
When average Americans start to investigate and get visibility into the stupid things that companies do with money, we all lose.
This sounds like a viable way to get exposure for the BoA brand. It’s not like it was a bunch of executives livin large - this was a real consumer-level event at which BoA hawked their wares.
But wasn’t BOA the one bank saying they didn’t want/need money and the government forced them to take it anyway? I might be wrong but I swear I was reading that.
It is possible that all those venues and caterers were booked over a year ago, and paid mostly in advance, given what it takes to host any kind of event at a mega-event like the Super Bowl. It’s barely possible that it would cost more to cancel than to go ahead.
Still, it does look bad given the current economic situation.
I don’t get why this is bad. Should BoA cease all spending now? Should we force them into bankruptcy simply because we have no idea what marketing intiatives pay off for them?
Maybe this was a huge success for them. Maybe they’ve made over $10 million on new credit card sign-ups already.
Yeah, this sounds like 10 million dollars of advertising aimed at potential customers, not some lavish, decadent affair involving CEOs lighting Cubans with hundred dollar bills.
Again Menzo, I am curious how increased corporate transparency is bad for Americans, especially when taxpayers are essentially shareholders in these companies. Please explain your reasoning, or let me know if I am misunderstanding you.
Because there’s only a little bit of transparency. The only data point you have is that BoA spent $10 million on this event. How long ago was it planned? What were their objectives? What were their measures for success? Have they done this sort of thing before? Did they have a decent ROI for those past events?
These are all the sorts of things that would be included in a plan that someone at BOA probably presented over a year ago to sponsor the event.
I’m not saying this wasn’t a bad idea. Maybe it was a really stupid idea, maybe it wasn’t. But the data you have doesn’t give you enough information to decide, so instead you see $10 million + BoA + Superbowl + tents and make some quick judgements that might be way off base.
It was wasted money. That kind of advertising is unnecessary right now; anyone with access to a TV or the Internet knows the government recently gave Bank of America a shitload of cash. They have a higher brand name recognition right now than Paris Hilton, American Idol or Domino’s Pizza. If they want to advertise, they can damn well start making loans again and get name recognition the old fashioned way, through quality products and services.
Thing is my friends and I see it this way:
BoA takes a 10M+ Super Bowl trip with taxpayer money, while our coworkers Robert, Denise and 3 others from another dept lose their jobs because of cutbacks.
I am concerned about the quality of life for bloggers if they have limited transparency into the workings of a business they know nothing about. Obsessive hours of assumptions could lead to broken relationships and lost jobs, stressing our nation even further.
I understand you want someone to pay for all this mess. But companies have to spend money to make money - if Joe Sixpack is going to be in charge of greenlighting BoA’s marketing spends based on a quick one-line description of what it’s for, we might as well pull the curtain today.
I’m not saying these guys are marketing geniuses, I’m just saying that the average local news watcher definitely isn’t.
