A few weeks ago I wrote a piece about evaluating the winners of the
Super Bowl ad war. Shortly after that, I sat back one night and turned on my DVR to watch Jeopardy for the first time in recent memory.
I was tuning in to see IBM’s Watson, an artificial intelligence computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language, square off against two of the quiz show’s top champs. It was a battle reminiscent of
Garry Kasparov vs. Deep Blue.
The show was fun to watch, and while Watson had a hiccup or two, (watch two examples of Watson struggling
here and
here if you haven’t seen them yet) he very quickly put humankind in its place by racking up nearly $80,000. This was more than double the total of his two competitors combined.
Throughout the three episodes Watson appeared on Jeopardy, one thought continued to strike me. What an incredible media and communications opportunity this was for Jeopardy, and boy did someone drop the ball!
If we apply the Super Bowl ad criteria of evaluating a winner or loser based on making the most of an opportunity, Jeopardy earned a big F. While the show did see a slight uptick in viewers (about a 2.1 percent increase from its average ratings) it was nothing compared to what could have been.
Watson tapped into a very simple human emotion: fear. The fright of computers taking over and doing things better than us is very old, and Jeopardy could have taken advantage of this to push itself back to the forefront of pop culture. It would have also been a great opportunity to reach a new audience, similar to the way Ken Jennings, one of Watson’s competitors, did for the show years ago during his legendary run (which ironically inspired IBM to develop Watson).
With digital media creating an almost endless amount of promotional possibilities, it’s amazing that no one thought to give the supercomputer an effective Facebook page (the poor guy only has about 20,000 fans), Twitter handle (his follower count is also a sad 7,600 people) or YouTube Channel (non-existent). After all, who wouldn’t want to see the computer training for the competition – which he really did leading up to the show – and some of the resulting outtakes. A simple “humans vs. computers” online poll could have built buzz before the show and driven traffic to the Jeopardy site. Heck, they could have at least streamed the episodes online in a partnership with IBM, especially since Jeopardy’s late afternoon/early evening timeslots makes it difficult for many to watch live. The promotional possibilities are endless, and when it comes to humans versus computers, the viewers would have definitely tuned in. Just look at the Terminator franchise.
However, Jeopardy seemed to choose not to promote the challenge between a computer and two humans. Instead, the show relied on IBM’s commercials to get the word out. It also decided to air the three days of programs starting on Valentine’s Day, which is never a great day for TV.
The end result: great TV with no buzz. Jeopardy loyalists who saw the shows will keep watching like always, and they are probably hoping that Watson doesn’t come back to crush anymore humans. For the rest of us, the competition may as well never have happened.