Superbowl-ads.com Article Archive

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.”

FedEx announced today that it will not run a Super Bowl ad for the first time in 12 years. Director of advertising Steve Pacheco posted a statement on the company Web site citing “unprecedented economic waters” as the reason FedEx is opting not to buy a spot. The average ad is running about $3 million this year. “There is a time to justify such an ad spend and a time to step back,” he said. A FedEx rep confirmed Pacheco’s statement.

Hitwise, announced the Super Bowl XLII advertiser websites with the largest increases in market share of visits on Super Bowl Sunday (Feb. 3, 2008) were Hyundai (www.hyundaigenesis.com), up 1450 percent versus Saturday, Feb. 2, 2008, Paramount’s Ironman Movie (www.ironmanmovie.com), up 800 percent and GoDaddy.com, which increased 616 percent.

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.

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.

FedEx, “Pigeons”: After a first quarter that was filled with lame or underwhelming spots, this was the first to draw big laughs from my Bowl-viewing contingent.
Doritos, “Mouse Trap”: I’m not 100 percent sure why, but my tiny focus group went wild for this one. When people are yelling for you to pause the game [...]

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.

Advertisers hoping to wait until the last minute to get a bargain on a Super Bowl spot are out luck.

Fox, which is airing the game on Feb. 3, sold the last ad yesterday. A source said the ad fetched north of the $2.7 million average price.

Demand for the 63 national network spots has remained strong right up to the game.

The spots sold especially fast this year, with advertisers snapping up almost all the inventory months in advance of the game.

Strong economic times can result in a bounty of good Super Bowl ads. Janet Jackson’s exposed breast is a Super Bowl commercial killer. And venture capitalist money equals offbeat and funny — at least when it comes to the memorable dot-com advertisements of the late 1990s and 2000.

That was arguably the best era for Super Bowl ads, but there were other boom times as well — which, coincidence or not, often seem to come when confidence in the economy is rising. The landmark Apple “1984” commercial highlighted one of the best Super Bowls for ad-watchers, and the Reaganomics-fueled years that followed were stocked with plenty of clever spots as well.

Super Bowl viewers will be on the lookout for rookie mistakes — and not just on the field.

Advertising at the big game is a gamble for newcomers not just because of the rising cost of buying the ads — advertisers are paying up to $2.7 million for a 30-second spot this year, up from $2.6 million in 2007 — but also the risk to their reputations if the commercials fall flat or offend.