Super Bowl 50 is over, and the world’s most expen­sive media buy of the year is now a thing of the past. Some adver­tis­ers are cel­e­brat­ing their crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed show­ings and oth­ers are cry­ing in their beers (includ­ing, pre­sum­ably, the world’s largest mak­er of beers, which had a pret­ty bad night). It’s time now for the Mon­day Morn­ing Quar­ter­backs of Adver­tis­ing, includ­ing myself, to come out and say what we would have done dif­fer­ent­ly.

First, to tem­per the below dis­cus­sion with a pref­ace: regard­less of how you showed, you’re prob­a­bly not as good or bad an adver­tis­er as “they” (the con­sumers and crit­ics) say you are. The Super Bowl has always been an arti­fi­cial adver­tis­ing test at best. How can you effec­tive­ly mea­sure the inter­rupt­ing capa­bil­i­ty of a medi­um that is all about break­ing through to con­sumers, when the con­sumer is primed to keep eye­balls peeled and pay unnat­ur­al atten­tion? This isn’t how real adver­tis­ing works, it’s a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent stage. Sec­ond, any adver­tis­er that choos­es to par­tic­i­pate in the Super Bowl is inher­ent­ly bold and shows a will­ing­ness to take chances. These adver­tis­ers are the industry’s “old souls,” those who appre­ci­ate the art of adver­tis­ing, and have the bud­get to throw mon­ey to spon­sor the Unit­ed States’ largest sport­ing event, so that should be cel­e­brat­ed. Kudos to any CMO or CEO who real­izes adver­tis­ing mon­ey is a brand­ing invest­ment in the long run, not an expen­di­ture. For many adver­tis­ers, see­ing them­selves in the bot­tom 10 of USA Today’s Ad Meter Poll, what many in the busi­ness con­sid­er to be the de fac­to mea­sure­ment tool, is bound to be dis­con­cert­ing at the very least. For many of these mar­keters I sug­gest anoth­er bold rethink; it’s time you start approach­ing adver­tis­ing a lot dif­fer­ent­ly. Rather than tak­ing the scat­ter­shot shot­gun approach of using the Super Bowl to reach your audi­ence, con­sid­er mov­ing your brands into the world of strate­gi­cal­ly tar­get­ed and per­son­al­ized con­tent. Don’t try to talk to every lead in the world – good, bad or oth­er­wise – who might use your prod­uct via one avenue. Instead, tar­get your efforts to the great leads, the qual­i­fied leads, the leads who show a strong propen­si­ty or need for your prod­uct. Here are four things for Super Bowl adver­tis­ers to con­sid­er next year.

1. A Data Deep Dive

Look at who is buy­ing your prod­uct – the who, what, why, when, and how. Not just who we think it is. The data will show who it real­ly is and allow you to see things you couldn’t before, like con­sumer buy­ing pat­terns, pre­ci­sion tar­get­ing, and the exact when/where/what of real buy­ing behav­ior.

2. Develop A Comprehensive Digital Content Strategy

Your instinct to enter­tain, inform, and delight the con­sumer is exact­ly right. You just need to do it in the right way, in the right time and place, informed by data. Approach the Super Bowl spot as a mass media com­po­nent of a dig­i­tal­ly-cen­tric mar­ket­ing plan. Focus on efforts that tar­get and mea­sure the true effec­tive­ness of your efforts, not based on a vague “ad per­for­mance” met­ric (sor­ry, USA Today).

3. Create Big Ideas For The Big Game

Cre­ate “big idea” cre­ative that works syn­er­gis­ti­cal­ly across the entire dig­i­tal ecosys­tem. A world that allows unique con­sumer involve­ment and par­tic­i­pa­tion through real-time ampli­fi­ca­tion across mul­ti­ple chan­nels, a world that is more per­son­al­ized and spe­cial than a one-size-fits-all Super Bowl ad can cre­ate.

4. Win The Moments

Use mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy to find and fol­low con­sumers with your mes­sag­ing and keep a con­stant pres­ence, not just cap­tur­ing atten­tion for 30–60 sec­onds one night of the year. Con­sid­er part­ner­ing with a plat­form like Twit­ter to cre­ate moment-based mar­ket­ing that’s con­tex­tu­al­ly rel­e­vant dur­ing and after the big game.