Superbowl-ads.com Article Archive

Definition 6, an integrated interactive agency, today announced the launch of the Coca-Cola “Happiness Machine” video. Coca-Cola selected Definition 6 to develop a video for viral distribution that would tie into its recently launched ‘Open Happiness’ global advertising campaign.

“We were looking for a creative way to connect with teens outside of the typical TV commercial or online game,” said A.J. Brustein, Global Senior Brand Manager, Coca-Cola. “We wanted to give them something that would spread a bit of happiness and something they could pass on to their friends to keep the happiness flowing.”
The “Happiness Machine” campaign features a Coca-Cola vending machine transformed to deliver small “doses” of happiness for unsuspecting college students, in the form of everything from flowers and pizza, to 6-foot subs and balloon animals.

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)

The escalating chatter surrounding Super Bowl XLIV is not just about the teams competing for the 2010 championship. The TV commercials that will appear during the game are also the subject of discussion and speculation. And participating advertisers will once again be confronted with the difficult question of whether the Super Bowl is a smart marketing investment or a wasted use of the budget.

TNS Media Intelligence has again combed through its extensive database to report on the past 20 years of Super Bowl advertising. From 1990 thru 2009, the Super Bowl game has generated $2.17 billion of network sales from a total of 210 different advertisers and more than 1,400 commercial messages.

“The Super Bowl remains a singular event for engaging the broadest number of consumers at one time,” said Mark Nesbitt, President, TNS Media Intelligence. “Because it is viewed live and experienced by a majority of the country at the same time, a commercial presence on the broadcast has great significance and impact for a brand, making each not so much a brand message as a brand event. It is why a presence on the broadcast lends itself so effectively to an integrated marketing effort.”

“As an advertising event, the Super Bowl has evolved beyond a vehicle for presenting expensive, stand-alone commercial spots that seek to entertain viewers and generate awareness,” said Jon Swallen, SVP Research for TNS Media Intelligence. “Increasingly, in-game spots are being supplemented by elaborate integrated communications programs that attempt to drive traffic online or in-store, generate positive social media discussion, incorporate public relations effort and ultimately achieve a strong ROI.”

He spit up in front of 97.4 million people and “underestimated the creepiness” of a clown he hired, but the 9-month-old in E-Trade’s (ETFC) two Super Bowl ads is a star. Both ads aired late in the game, but ranked 13th and 14th out of 53 game ads with consumers rating the ads in real time for USA TODAY’s annual Super Bowl Ad Meter. Since then, they’ve been two of the most-watched game ads online and finished high in measures of online buzz.

How they made the ads: The crew at agency Grey New York filmed the baby (his name is not being disclosed) sitting in a highchair before a green screen making expressions, mostly in response to his mother. She sat in an adjacent room for the filming and was seen by the baby on a monitor. Added later digitally: the mouth movements of a 5-year-old actor, the voice of a 30-year-old and the keyboard, room items and clown.

comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released the results of its annual Super Bowl post-game survey. The survey of 1,139 U.S. Internet users who watched Super Bowl XLII, which featured the New York Giants’ improbable victory over the previously undefeated New England Patriots, was conducted on February 3-4, 2008. With two large market teams and the Patriots’ quest for a perfect season on the line, the television broadcast averaged a record 97 million viewers throughout the game, making the event even more important than usual for this year’s advertisers.

Anheuser-Busch Reigns as King of Ads

The most popular advertiser during the Super Bowl was Anheuser-Busch, whose commercials for Bud and Bud Light (including comedian Will Ferrell’s offbeat spot) scored well amongst viewers, with nearly half indicating they would most like to see the commercials again. Beverage spots were particularly popular this year, with a large percentage of respondents saying they would also like to see ads for Pepsi (28 percent) and Coca Cola (25 percent) again.

The days of Super Bowl ads littered with celebrities may be numbered. Celebs of various sorts showed up in 18 ads this year, but not one cracked the top five in USA TODAY’s Ad Meter, an exclusive real-time consumer rating of the ads.

Shut out of even the top 10: Pepsi’s (PEP) high-priced Justin Timberlake, Carmen Electra for Ice Breakers, Shaquille O’Neal for Vitaminwater and Richard Simmons and Alice Cooper for Bridgestone. In the game’s celeb heyday of the 1980s, Michael Jackson could make a Pepsi ad an event, and Michael Jordan took ads into rare air. On the latest Super Sunday, some celeb ads even crashed.

This was the eighth Super Bowl of the 21st century, but if you were only paying attention to the commercials, you might have thought it was the 1970s, ’80s or ’90s.

It wasn’t just older themes that played during the between-plays breaks in Super Bowl XLII, such as Budweiser’s Dalmatians and Clydesdales, which have been commercial stars during the big game for decades. Sunday’s Super Bowl ads also referred to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” the Andrea True disco song “More, More, More” and the “Saturday Night Live” skit that led to the 1998 movie “A Night at the Roxbury.” And that was just in the first half.

Advertisers couldn’t have asked for much more out of the Super Bowl XLII on Sunday.

A nail-biting 17-14 victory by the New York Giants over the New England Patriots likely kept most of the audience glued to the television — and the commercials — until the final seconds.

And while the drama may have been higher on the field than during the breaks, the advertisements nevertheless provided a cast of characters that included supermodels, a sleazy jock, a inspirational horse and a cheeky daytrader in diapers.

This year, the Super Bowl took on even more significance than usual for advertisers, as they tried to push beer, soda, sneakers and cars to consumers stymied by an economic downturn.

The New York Giants’ victory over the New England Patriots Sunday night was one of the biggest upsets in Super Bowl history, but the advertising effort during the big game was not quite as inspiring.

“We had a mixed bag of commercials this year. Some were really strong and some hard to follow,” said Tim Calkins, a clinical professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Super Bowl commercials are supposed to be the best. The very best!

Every year, we expect miracles — and every year, to be honest, many of them disappoint. This year is no different, though the culprit might surprise you – that vast new advertising frontier we call “the Internet.” Yes, the great equalizer has leveled the playing field; now bad is the new good.

News Corp.’s Fox network may get as much as $215 million in advertising revenue for its Super Bowl broadcast on Feb. 3, including pre- and post-game shows, according to a person with knowledge of the sales.

The contest itself may take in $170 million, said the person, who asked not to be named because the sales numbers aren’t public. The 63 30-second slots went for an average price of $2.7 million each.

Fox sold its last spot on Jan. 29, earlier than the four other Super Bowl games it has hosted. The network sold 90 percent of its space two months before the game as marketers sought out shows where viewers are less likely to skip ads with digital recorders. Ads purchased after Hollywood writers went on strike Nov. 5 fetched as much as $3 million, the person said. That’s higher than the $2.6 million CBS Corp. reached last year.