How Chevy pulled off Super Bowl blackout

Chevrolet's Super Bowl "Blackout" was more than a typical ad.

Instead, it was a calculated piece of showmanship, relying on trickery, timing and surprise.

The approach was risky, but it worked. And it gave Chevrolet, which has received its share of criticism for tepid advertising in recent years, very welcome praise.

The spot for the Colorado midsize pickup included a simulated power outage that temporarily turned viewers' TV screens black.

Chevrolet executives, operating with the mindset of Las Vegas showmen, knew they needed to time the screen-distorting stunt perfectly. Paul Edwards, Chevrolet's U.S. vice president of marketing, and his team wondered: Just how long should people stare at their black screens before they're let in on the joke?

Was a 14-second disruption too long?

Was 4 seconds long enough?

The debate wasn't concluded until less than a week before the game, when Chevrolet and NBC settled on 7 seconds. Only then did Chevy pop the question that would lead to its pitch for the Colorado's 4G LTE connectivity: "What would you do if your TV went out?" 

The 7-second decision was a crucial one that executives at Chevrolet, ad agency Commonwealth//McCann and NBC wrestled with to coax maximum impact from the commercial. 

Chevrolet and Commonwealth executives were fully aware of the emotional tightrope they walked that night. Extend the blackout too long and they'd run the risk of inciting a legion of ticked-off fans. 

"Seven seconds was about that magic number where it was enough time to draw people in, but then to give them a big fat smile right after letting them know it was a commercial from Chevrolet," Edwards said. "If we played it out too long, you had the risk of people changing the channel, or shutting off the TV or, honestly, getting mad. I think we played it perfectly. It was a balancing act." 

Chevrolet worked on a tight deadline to create the commercial. Commonwealth// McCann first pitched "Blackout" around two months ago, but Chevrolet didn't decide to go with it until a month before the game, said Gary Pascoe, the agency's chief creative officer for North America. 

The length of the disruption was only one piece of the stunt. For heightened shock value, Chevrolet needed to place it in an ideal spot. 

Edwards said Chevy worked with its media team, Commonwealth//McCann and NBC to determine when viewer anticipation was highest. 

The team debated whether the ad should run during the game or before, but Chevy was sold on the pregame when research found that anticipation peaked right before kickoff. 

The only drawback was that fewer people would be watching at that point, but it was an easy trade-off. Chevrolet, like a showman, knew its audience was ripe for the picking. 

"I'll take 80 million highly engaged consumers that are going to react immediately to 114 million that may or may not be paying attention in the third quarter," Edwards said. 

Edwards acknowledged that Chevy could have received a flood of hostile reactions on social media once "Blackout" ran. But he said the opposite happened. 

Chevy, measuring sentiment across 90 percent of the social space on sites including Twitter and YouTube, found that it garnered 93 percent positive sentiment among users. 

Edwards said the conversations fell into several themes, including, "You got me," and "We really liked it." 

Chevrolet also noticed the ad drove interest in its pickup. Edwards said another theme was, "I've got to check out the Colorado." 

Edmunds.com said Colorado traffic surged 1,104 percent during the first quarter shortly after the ad ran, compared with traffic on the previous Sunday. 

The outpouring "far exceeded" Chevy's expectations, Edwards said. 

"This was one way to break through the clutter in terms of a large-scale audience and get their attention. I don't think we set out to necessarily scare them, but to certainly get their attention," Edwards said. "If you can do that in 7 seconds, and then deliver all the great messages around Colorado, we've done our job." 

The "Blackout" premise wasn't as daring in its infancy. 

The agency had planned for a traditional, scripted ad with actors, Pascoe said. 

The original idea depicted people watching TV until it went out, forcing them into the garage, where they wouldn't miss a beat: They use their Colorado's 4G LTE connection to watch the game. 

But, Pascoe said, the creative team decided, "Wouldn't it be better if we did this for real?" 

It worked. 

"The good news is we came up with an idea that was relatively inexpensive to produce. A black screen doesn't cost a lot of money," Pascoe said. "There's no Liam Neeson or George Clooney. We had to rely on the strength of the idea rather than a $6 million production budget."