Here’s a question millions of people asked after Super Bowl Sunday—is it worth paying more than $4 million for a 30 second ad on the Super Bowl?
It seemed to work for Bank of America. Their one-minute commercial, featuring U2’s new single Invisible, resulted in more than 3 million downloads in the 36 hours following the Super Bowl. The Bank sponsored the free downloads of the song, giving $1 per download to a global AIDS-fighting fund.
The song was downloaded over 1 million times within the hour following the advertisement. This was still during the game when we were supposed to be glued to the TV, drinking beer and eating guacamole. But even before it was clear the game was going to be a blowout, we were downloading the song on our phone, tablet, or computer. As a result of those downloads, Bank of America exceeded its original pledge of $2 million and donated $3,144,477 to support the work of the (Red)’s Global Fund.
In terms of charitable contributions and public involvement, there is no doubt that getting 3 million people involved in 36 hours is a nice achievement. What was the secret for their success? We argue that it was sharing of the responsibility between the bank and us that made the difference.
It wasn’t about the bank
Many of us don’t trust banks. If the bank was the focus of the commercial, the public likely would have received the ad with a heavy dose of skepticism. In fact, did you know that Bank of America has committed millions of dollars to charities over the course of the next two years? Probably not. And if you did, you were probably suspicious about the Bank’s ulterior motives.
But the one-minute ad focused on U2’s new single; Bank of America’s logo didn’t show up until the last ten seconds of the ad.
It wasn’t about you
If you downloaded the single, you got something you valued (assuming you like U2’s music) for free, and you were able to feel good about it. Bank of America didn’t ask much from you; they didn’t even give you an option to donate anywhere in the download process. You got only the good stuff—a free song and a feeling of doing the right thing.
It is about sharing the responsibility
A few years ago, we (together with Ayelet Gneezy, Leif Nelson, and Amber Brown) conducted a series of field experiments with a large, multi-national corporation examining charitable giving.
We suggested a different way to get the public involved—a pay-what-you-want (PWYW) pricing model, with half of the revenue going to charity. In PWYW pricing, the customers decide how much they want to pay for the product, typically including zero.
When we introduced charitable giving into the PWYW model (we called this “Shared Social Responsibility”), demand increased significantly compared to the traditional model in which a portion of the purchase price is donated to charity. Allowing people to choose their own price resulted in significantly more money for both the company and the charitable organization.
The motives behind a traditional charitable-purchase model are twofold. One is the charitable giving itself. Two, the addition of the charity component is meant to increase demand for the product, therefore increasing profits for the company involved. The success of Shared Social Responsibility model was based on a shift of the financial risk. The responsibility to take action was on the customer, but the financial risk was taken on by the company. Seeing the company was willing to expose itself to the risk of losing money, the customers in our study were willing to reward the company’s trust by paying more than was required under a PWYW model.
The lesson from the bank’s Super Bowl campaign and a PWYW with charity model is that companies should not try to force corporate social responsibility on the suspicious customer: shared social responsibility between companies and customers allows everyone to win.
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Uri Gneezy is the Epstein/Atkinson Endowed Chair in Behavioral Economics and professor of economics and strategy at the Rady School of Management at the University of California, San Diego. He is the co-author, with John List, of The Why Axis: Hidden Motives and the Undiscovered Economics of Everyday Life.
Katie Baca-Motes is a Senior Researcher and Writer at the Rady School of Management, University of California, San Diego.
