Steve Davies

When you look at the latest plethora of Super Bowl ads, what do you see? A bit of fun? Or do they inspire you think about ways in which you can apply the same thinking to your own promotional activities? Hopefully it's the latter, because there's much to learn from the patterns being formed.

In 9 days, 10 hours and 23 minutes the biggest U.S. sporting event of the year, Super Bowl 46, will begin. But what does American Football have to do with cars?

Toyota Yaris - not the easiest car to promote in a market crowded with standout superminis. Mainstream stalwarts include the Ford Fiesta, Vauxhall Corsa and Volkswagen Polo, whilst even entry-level versions of the Volkswagen Beetle or BMW MINI might feature on the same shopping list as Toyota's sensible hatchback.

We hear a lot about Intelligence in the motoring industry, it's become the norm in automotive acronyms, especially for the leading German car makers - Intelligent Performance, Intelligent Lightweight Construction and even Intelligent Emotion (whatever that means) - but how intelligent is their marketing?

One of the many lessons I have learned during a career working in digital, is that when something becomes a trend, it's already too late to reap any meaningful advantage.

If you've followed some of my adventures in recent years, then you'll know how much value I place on video as a medium for online marketers and publishers to engage with their audience.

After last year's successful launch of MINI's location-based iPhone Game in Stockholm, Tokyo becomes the next destination to be engulfed by MINI fever.

Supercar makers don't usually need to advertise their latest models - the automotive and lifestyle media do a pretty good job of that on their own. So, on the rare occasion when an ad is created, we tend to sit up and take notice, since it tells us plenty about the state of the brand.