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.”

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.

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.

The highest rated commercial in Sunday’s down-to-the-wire Super Bowl battle was an ad for Victoria’s Secret, according to Nielsen analysis released today.

The spot was seen by 103.7 million people at 9:44 p.m., near the dramatic conclusion to the game, which aired on Fox. (Viewing numbers provided are based on live plus same day DVR playback viewing.) The average audience throughout the game was a record-setting 97.5 million people in the U.S.

et ready for more Jackie Moon pitches for Bud Light.

The improvisational endorsement from Will Ferrell’s character in New Line Cinema’s release of Semi Pro initially was intended to be an online short. But Anheuser-Busch executives decided to put the ad from DDB, New York and Chicago, on Fox’s Super Bowl telecast during the fourth quarter.

“We agreed with Will’s team a couple weeks ago and ourselves that it would be better for the Super Bowl because it’s an opportunity for a few more jokes; it was a great call,” said Bob Lachky, chief creative officer and evp, global industry development.

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.

The hype. The title. The glory. It all came down to one game. This year, it was the battle between the “un-beatens” and the underdogs. In one of the biggest upsets in NFL history, the Giants outplayed the Patriots 17-14 in Super Bowl XLII. Whether you are a Patriots or Giants fan, viewers could find common ground in one aspect of the big game: the commercials.

Super Bowl commercials have always provided entertainment and an avenue of humor for viewers. Companies spent an average of $2.7 million for a 30 second spot, according to The Associated Press.

If you look at the Super Bowl advertisement hype, which seems to triple each year, it almost makes the 30-second spots seem worth the 40 bajillion dollars that companies such as Anheuser-Busch and Pepsi will be paying for them in 2008.

And with so many iconic moments in the past 3 1/2 decades, it’s becoming more socially acceptable to admit you prefer the commercials to the game – especially the 52-10 blowout between the New England Patriots and New York Giants that we’re about to watch on Sunday afternoon. Have we reached the point where popular culture has become part of American history? And if so, should Super Bowl ads be taught in every classroom?

“Super Bowl ads are one of the purest forms of branded entertainment,” says Larry Vincent, Group Director of Strategy in the Los Angeles office of premier brand strategy and design consultancy Siegel+Gale, and long-time entertainment marketing expert. “Super Bowl ads have become theatre in their own right, but if you’re not tying the ad to a direct call to action, you have to ask: what is this huge investment really doing for my brand?” “The iconic Apple Macintosh introduction ad in 1984 worked as a brand- building tool because it addressed the promise of the brand and established the voice that the brand would employ for decades to come. But it was also a spectacular launch point for a much bigger campaign — the next day they launched the product. They used the media for its greatest strength: reach. Frequency was not a factor, since the ad ran once and only once.