Superbowl-ads.com Article Archive

Focus on the Family will broadcast the first Super Bowl ad in its history Feb. 7 during CBS Sports’ coverage of the game at Dolphin Stadium in South Florida.

The 30-second spot from the international family-help organization will feature college football star Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam. They will share a personal story centered on the theme of “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life.”

“Tim and Pam share our respect for life and our passion for helping families thrive,” said Jim Daly, president and CEO of Focus on the Family, “They live what we see every day – that the desire for family closeness is written on the hearts of every generation. Focus on the Family is about nurturing that desire and strengthening families by empowering them with the tools they need to live lives rooted in morals and values.”

The Tebows said they agreed to appear in the commercial because the issue of life is one they feel very strongly about.

Daly chuckled at some of the “will-they-or-won’t-they?” speculation in the media about whether Focus would indeed create a Super Bowl ad. Daly added that all the funds to air the ad came from a handful of “very generous and committed friends” who donated specifically to support the project. No money from the ministry’s general fund was used.

“Now that the ad has been shot, we’re excited to tell people it’s coming, because the Tebows’ story is such an important one for our culture to hear,” he said. “You won’t want to miss it.”

As Super Bowl XLIV nears on Feb. 7, CBS is already “very close to a sellout,” a spokesman for the network, Dana McClintock, said on Tuesday. He declined to specify how much of the estimated 30 to 35 minutes of paid commercial time in the game was still available.

By contrast, at this point in 2009, when NBC was selling spots to be shown during the broadcast of Super Bowl XLIII on Feb. 1, considerably more time remained unsold.

“Last year, time was being sold entering into a recession,” Mr. McClintock said. “This year, it’s being sold apparently coming out of one.”

Another difference is that a year ago, many marketers that bought Super Bowl spots were playing down their participation, fearing that the sour national mood made the usual hoopla seem inappropriate. Now, though, the hyperbole machine is being cranked up by many sponsors as they seek attention for their ad plans.

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 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.

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.

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.

From the previews that have been judiciously leaked over the past few days, the Super Bowl ads will feature a familiar mix of celebrities in zany situations and critters in zany situations.

Humor is the unchanging constant of Super Bowl ads, and that’s not a bad thing, especially considering how seriously so many millions of Americans will take the accompanying football game.

The 1973 Super Bowl has become a frequent point of reference this year because Super Bowl VII, played Jan. 14 at Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, was the game in which the Miami Dolphins became the first team in modern pro football history to finish a season undefeated.

Their 14-7 win over the Washington Redskins, despite placekicker Garo Yepremian throwing the worst pass in Super Bowl History, gave them a 17-0 record – the record being challenged Sunday by the New England Patriots, who would with a victory over the Giants finish 19-0.

But the 1973 Super Bowl also marked another historic milestone: the commercial that many feel planted the seed for what Super Bowl ads have become today.

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?