Superbowl-ads.com Article Archive

http://detnews.com:80/1999/sports/9902/01/superads.htm

What was your favorite commercial or series of commercials in the first half of the Super Bowl?

Budweiser Lizards: “We got canned” and Louie gets atongue-lashing.

Visa: Husband trapped in bathroom; palace guard out of uniform

Macintosh: HAL confesses over Y2K.

Pepsi One: Gangsta guys try mind control.

M&Ms Candies: try to talk hungry people out ofeating them.

Budweiser lobster: Desperate crustacean holds beer hostage.

Cracker Jack: Really big candy.

Cadillac: The Escalade is born.

Budweiser dog: Dalmations compare careers as fire dog and Bud dog.

Doritos: Hot chips set off the sprinklers.  

What was your favorite commercial or series of commercials in the second half of the Super Bowl?

Federal Express: Stanley Cup gets lost on way to the Red Wings.

MasterCard: Seinfeld’s fake tour of the U.S.

Bud Light: Mouse with goggles.

WWF: Wrestlers try to put a hold on viewers.

Oldsmobile: Model makes an artsy entrance.

Hotjobs.com: A doorman dreams of more.

Hartford Insurance: Kangaroo catastrophies.

Just for Feet: Barefoot marathon runner gets new shoes.

Land Rover: Mom tries to find child in car.

Monster.com: Kids and what they want to be.

http://www.amcity.com:80/atlanta/stories/1999/02/15/smallb2.html

Alf Nucifora

A combination of Mardi Gras, the Academy Awards and the KentuckyDerby, the Super Bowl is the once-a-year opportunity for advertisersand ad agencies to create reputations and flaunt their best. It’s gotten to the point where some people stay for the ads and go to the bathroom during the game. But, not this year. So much money was spent for so little impact. At a hefty rate card price of $1.6 million for a 30-second commercial, this year’s Super Bowl advertising was a monument to excess with an abundance of questionable taste and painful waste.

Movie companies were big spenders in their headlong rush to promote their latest blockbusters.

Like some never-ending migraine headache, the Fox network pounded viewers with incessant promotion for their new season’s cheesy programming.

The auto, truck and sport-utility vehicle (SUV) brands served up thesame cliché-driven mush. The rare exception was Oldsmobile, nowtrying to reposition itself as a contemporary player with some nifty newbrands (probably too little, too late).

For the first time, high-tech was everywhere. From Hotjobs to Hotbot, the Web fraternity was all over the screen.

The good

Budweiser: I don’t know whether it sells beer, but Budweiser advertising is still the funniest and most intelligent advertising to appear on the sports screen. The frogs and lizards still hold up. The Dalmatian spot pulled an approving sigh from both sexes. The “toilet paper/checkout” and “catapulting mouse” spots produced a requisite chuckle for Bud Lite. In a category where it’s hard to stand out, Budweiser performed in an exemplary fashion.

Pizza Hut: Donald Trump, Spike Lee and Fran Drescher, quintessential New Yorkers all, helped make the point that, at $9.99,Pizza Hut’s New York Style Pizza is a mouthful and a helluva buy. Pointwell made.

WWF: Gratuitous sex and violence, marvelously portrayed. Hey, that’s what professional wrestling is all about. They captured the spirit, tone and attraction of the spectacle with pinpoint accuracy.

VISA: Two clever spots illustrate the perils of writing a check instead of using a Visa check card, one featuring Buckingham Palace guards and the other, a guy locked in a bathroom awaiting the services of a locksmith, while his knockout wife/girlfriend waits despondently on the other side.

Doritos and Victoria’s: Sex still sells. A gorgeous vamp sets off fire sprinklers as she munches on Smokey Red Doritos, while pneumatic babes from Victoria’s Secret provide the come-hither for their upcoming fashion show on the Web.

Other decent efforts

American Express: As expected, Jerry Seinfeld performed well.

Federal Express: FedEx presented an entertaining spot featuring the Stanley Cup.

Yahoo! The Web searcher continued its effective campaign illustrating the benefits of working with a great search engine.

Mountain Dew: The soft-drink company hit the mark with blue-collar Generation X with its tongue-in-cheek “what snowboarders do in summer.”

The bad

First Union: Why is it that banks consistently deliver misguided and irrelevant advertising that talks to self-image as distinct from customers’ needs? First Union’s overproduced extravaganzas, with “Blade Runner” motifs and mountain themes, are nothing more than a gigantic waste of the advertiser’s money and the viewer’s time.

Apple: The computer giant gave a decent exposition of the Y2K problem, but one wonders how many people, particularly those under 50, got the “2001: A Space Odyssey” connection.

Australia Tourism: A strange spot from the Aussies. Some expensive schmaltz with kids in different lands “calling Australia home.” It’s the “I want to buy the world a Coke” theme revisited. But, what was thepoint? Coke and Pepsi: Nothing memorable was seen from Coke (again).Expensive, disappointing stuff was presented for PepsiOne, with amisused Cuba Gooding Jr.

The ugly

Buy.com: Here viewers were shown a guy on all fours sniffing a dog’s rear end. No doubt, in their follow-up campaign, they’ll have the dog hiking its leg. Is there no shame?

7-Up: An interesting concept for 7-Up, “The Uns,” was destroyed by people who think trite is funny, thus showing viewers a classic example of bad, expensive advertising. Will 7-Up ever get it right? Yellow Pages: Hiring Jon Lovitz is a perfect manifestation of the notionthat if you don’t have an idea, hire a celebrity. The hardest part wasfinding the message amid the waste.

Just For Feet: This is what happens when production technique runsamok and replaces the idea. There are better ways to promote a brand. And, there are less expensive ways to boot.

There it is — another year of advertising’s purported best. The patient’s got problems. No one is on life support yet, but unless the ad community recommits to strategy, discipline and treating the consumer with intelligence, they’re headed for the graveyard. Write or e-mail (edrachman@amcity.com) Nucifora c/o AtlantaBusiness Chronicle. Shoestring Marketing appears twice-monthly.

http://www.latimes.com:80/excite/990209/t000012369.html

By JONATHAN GAW, E-COMMERCE REPORTER

For their $1.6-million-per-30-seconds slot, Super Bowl advertisers received a 48% boost in visitors to their Web sites that day compared with the prior Sunday, according to Media Metrix Inc., a New York firm that measures Internet traffic. The survey also found that four out of five visitors to Super Bowl advertisers’ sites Sunday and Monday were men, representing a 32% increase in male visitors over the prior week. However, the number of female visitors to those sites on Super Bowl Sunday and the next day declined 26% compared with the previous week. The survey also found that traffic to football-related sites on Super Bowl Sunday and the following Monday rose 137% among women, compared with a 50% increase in visits by men.

http://www.amcity.com:80/sanjose/stories/1999/02/08/editorial1.html

Much-anticipated commercials a letdown, just like the Falcons

Alastair Goldfisher

I enjoy sports, and football has been a favorite of mine since I was akid. My friends and I were huge collectors of trading cards, and every Sunday we’d arrange our heaps of them on the floor and ape the action on TV. For the Super Bowl, we souped things up with a little commercial authenticity by spreading bags of chips, beverage cans and other advertised goods around the carpet to reflect the ads on the tube. We were into the hoopla of both the game and the commercials. But I will remember Super Bowl XXXIII mostly for the repeat win by the Denver Broncos.

Most of the ads were less memorable. After millions of dollars and many months in production, too many of the 30 or so minutes’ worth of ads were a letdown, just like the Atlanta Falcons. So here’s my advice: If the whole world is watching, get your money’s worth. This is especially true for tech firms, which have to compete against supermodels, talking amphibians and Dalmatians to capture viewers.

Apple Computer Inc. probably got its money’s worth. The computer maker reportedly spent a mere $200,000 to produce its “HAL” ad, compared with the millions that others spent. Most liked the ad’s use of the famous talking computer, but I think it was too urbane and went over the heads of the general audience. This isn’t Apple bashing. I generally applaud their marketing. “Think different” is effective, and the iMac spots are colorful. But using the static image of HAL didn’t make the point Apple wanted to make about the Y2K bug.

Thumbs down.

The Siebel Systems ad also didn’t meet my expectations. After being cagey all month about whether it would advertise, the San Mateo company ran spots during the first and fourth quarters that grunted to the James Brown tune “I Feel Good.” The ads didn’t make me feel anything. Previous Siebel ads put the spotlight on CEO Tom Siebel, and that personal touch would have been nice during the Super Bowl.

Other advertisers also dropped the ball. AT&T’s “personal network”s pots made little impression, and the Just For Feet ad in the fourth quarter was insulting.

Sun Microsystems Inc.’s presence was unexpected, considering that its PR people told me the company wouldn’t be advertising. There it was in the second quarter telling viewers it is “the dot in dot-com.” The tag is nothing new, but the ad was one of its best lately.

A marginal thumbs up. Intel Corp. balked at advertising, but Philips Electronics aired its first Super Bowl ad. The Netherlands company has gotten a lot of use outof its “Getting Better” campaign. Thankfully, Philips didn’t run a retread, but created a new ad with the same theme.

Again, a marginal thumbs up. HotJobs.com of New York took the humor route. But the ad’s witseemed forced, like a comedian who laughs at his own jokes. Likewise, Buy.com of Southern California used sophomoric humor inits postgame ad, showing a man mimicking what dogs do to get to know one another. It caught my attention, but I wasn’t compelled to check out the Web site. The best tech ad of the entire game was for HotJobs competitor Monster.com of Indiana, which proved humor and technology can work in tandem. The black-and-white ad showed children saying, among other things, “I want to rise to be middle manager.” It came on twice, and I want to see it again.

Beyond tech, Anheuser-Busch showed it is the king of beers and theking of ads. AB owns the Super Bowl, paying to be the exclusive beer sponsor through 2002. It’s worth it. My 2-year-old son chortled as Louie the Lizard got whipped by a frog, and he laughed again when the lobster escaped the boiling pot. I don’t drink Bud, but those ads lived up to the Super Bowl hype. So did the American Express and World Wrestling Federation spots. After 20 years of playing pretend football and watching thousands of ads, I’m not ready to give up on the Super Bowl. But next year I’ll probably break out the trading cards for myself and my son.

http://detnews.com:80/1999/biz/9902/06/02060012.htm

Sneaker retailer Just for Feet Inc. scrapped plans to keep running its Super Bowl commercial that showed a barefoot African marathon runner who was tracked down like an animal and tricked into wearing shoes.

By Skip Wollenberg / AP Business Writer

NEW YORK – Sneaker retailer Just for Feet Inc. scrapped plans to keep running its Super Bowl commercial that showed a barefoot African marathon runner who was tracked down like an animal and tricked into wearing shoes. The decision to shelve the ad after only one showing illustrates the unexpected risks involved when advertisers try to rise above the crowd on the premiere annual event for Madison Avenue as well as the NFL.

The Birmingham, Ala. – based shoe store chain made its first Super Bowl appearance last Sunday and had hoped to run the same commercial on other programs for about six weeks. But Harold Ruttenberg, chairman and chief executive, said the ad won’t run again because of criticism of how a runner is treated in the commercial that was intended to celebrate the retailer’s passion for protecting feet. It’s not the first time an advertiser has scrapped plans to keep running an ad after a splashy Super Bowl debut.

Holiday Inn dropped an ad it ran on the telecast two years ago after some complained about its use of a transsexual to draw attention to the hotel chain’s makeover.

The Just for Feet commercial showed a four-member “search and rescue” team tracking a Kenyan runner in a Humvee as he trained over rugged terrain. The trackers found his footprint, and drove ahead to offer a cup of water laced with a knockout drug as he passed by. Shortly after he drank it, the runner staggered and fell on his back. While he lay unconscious, the trackers put sneakers on his feet. The runner cried “No” when he awoke with shoes and he appeared to be trying to kick them off as he jogged away. “We’re Just for Feet – to preserve and protect feet,” a narrator said as the ad ended.

The ad drew mixed reviews. USA Today’s Super Bowl Ad Meter panelists ranked it in the middle of the pack of the 52 commercials that ran in the game. But critic Bob Garfield wrote in the trade magazine Advertising Age that it was “the worst spot on the Super Bowl” and called it “probably racist” and “certainly condescending.” “Have these people lost their minds?” he wrote.

The ad was created by the Rochester, N.Y., office of the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. Agency spokesman Michael Traphagan said it was intended as a humorous takeoff on how Just for Feet employees can be so passionate about their jobs that they sometimes “do the wrong thing.” Ruttenberg faulted himself for failing to take a closer look at the finished commercial before it ran.

He said he was unaware it showed the trackers drugging the runner’s water and thought the ending would have shown the runner smiling about how the shoes felt. He vigorously denied the ad was racist. He said the ad depicted a Kenyan because Kenyans have been marathon champions many times in recent years. He said the trackers included a Hispanic man and black woman. “The idea was to put shoes on his feet and show him how good these shoes felt,” the Just for Feet founder said. “In hindsight, the critics may very well be correct. But it was not the way we saw it.”

Just for Feet, founded 23 years ago with a single store in Birmingham, Ala., has about 330 stores nationwide with 1998 sales of $775 million.

Was the Super Bowl money wasted?

Ad time in the game sold for an average of $1.6 million for each half-minute commercial – three times the price for top-rated regular series in prime time. Ruttenberg said it was too early to tell. The company ran a sweepstakes tied to the Super Bowl ad and offered a Humvee to the winner.

Saatchi’s Traphagan said there were 2.5 million responses by phone or computer to the contest. “We believe we have gone a long way in putting Just for Feet in people’s minds,” he said.

http://www.latimes.com:80/excite/990204/t000010718.html

David Suissa

David Suissa is chairman and executive creative director of Suissa Miller Advertising in Los Angeles, whose clients include Acura, SkyTel and Jenny Craig.

The 10 best:

* Anheuser-Busch (Bud Lite): The toilet paper spot. An ordinary premise made brilliant by a killer one-two punch line.

* Apple Computer(): If you’ve got not one but two American icons (Apple and HAL), the subject du jour, and a haunting execution, you can get away with Super Bowl murder: not being funny.

* Anheuser-Busch (Budweiser): Louie gets a tongue-lashing. This spot stood out from lizard mania by being visceral, not just cerebral.

* Monster.com: Funny and endearing, with no animals, sex or special effects.

* Visa: Buckingham Palace. A fresh twist on the old palace guard routine.

* MasterCard: Cartoons. They Super Bowled a serious campaign by losing the schmaltz and adding the spoof.

* Land Rover: Not a belly laugh, but smart and to the point.

* Austin Powers: When everyone is having a party, silly is good.

* Anheuser-Busch (Budweiser): The lobster ad. Better than the Dalmatians because it had the chutzpah to include the beer in the story.

* World Wrestling Federation: If your audience knows that you know that they know it’s all fake, poke fun at yourself and they’ll love you.

The 10 worst:

* Buy.com: A guy sniffing a dog on national TV. Enough said.

* PepsiCo() (Pepsi One): They shot a cool-looking joke, but the punch line never showed up.

* First Union: Why would someone want a cold, corporate behemoth to get away from other cold, corporate behemoths?

* Cadbury Schweppes (7Up): Actually, no, I have no plans to become an “un.” How about you?

* Progressive Auto Insurance: The world’s most lovable alien sells out for an unknown name in an unlovable category. Bad career move.

* Volvo: Drive a Volvo truck and people will salute you. If they weren’t so hard to park, they might sell a million.

* Victoria’s Secret: The secret to great advertising is surprise. Someone tell Victoria.

* California Milk Advisory Board: The moon is made of cheese, but shoot, it’s not California cheese. Earth calling client: Tell us when to laugh.

* American Express: Seinfeld. A confusing overreach that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be an AmEx commercial or a Seinfeld trailer.

* AT&T: Big Brother’s back, and this time it’s personal.

http://www.latimes.com:80/excite/990204/t000010717.html

Super Bowl Ad Reviews

A special look at the Super Bowl, the biggest advertising and marketing event of the year Some Scored, Some Punted, Some Threw Bombs

The Times asked three advertising creatives to critique commercials shown during Sunday’s Super Bowl telecast–the biggest marketing event of the year. Here are their scorecards. Dick Sittig is president of Kowloon Wholesale Seafood Co. in Santa Monica, the agency that creates ads for Jack in the Box restaurants.

* Pizza Hut: Three spots starring Spike Lee, Fran Drescher and Donald Trump introduce New York-style pizza. Not only are these spots funny and beautifully produced, they wisely take advantage of what only a Super Bowl telecast can do–make 200 million customers instantly aware of your product.

* Anheuser-Busch: (Budweiser) Frogs and Lizards. The fact that the frog says, “Is this any way to sell beer?” makes me think the agency and the client understand they’re now selling the advertising instead of beer.

* Anheuser-Busch: (Budweiser) Lobster. My favorite spot this year. You don’t often get to see a lobster and a chef in a knife fight. And unlike the frogs and lizards, it elevates Bud by portraying the beer as special and valuable.

* MasterCard: Cartoon characters. Huh?

* Selsun Power: The folks at Selsun must have gotten great seats at the game. There is no other way to justify spending $1.6 million on this fantasy of dandruff and bullfights.

* Victoria’s Secret: Beautiful women in lingerie strutting their stuff for drunk guys watching football. That’ll work.

* Frito-Lay: I like the Cracker Jack spot a lot. They only tried to make one point, that Cracker Jack is available in a big bag, and they made the point memorably. Very funny and well done.

* Siebel Systems(): Blah, blah, blah sales professionals, blah, blah, blah commitment, blah, blah, blah superior, blah, blah, blah empower, blah, blah, blah. At the very least, the agency should have told their client the music they used, James Brown’s “I Feel Good,” is best known as the theme for a laxative.

* Anheuser-Busch: (Budweiser) Dalmations. Even though you can see the punch line coming a mile away, it’s still really funny. But what makes this spot good advertising and not just good entertainment is that it also elevates the Bud brand. As an added benefit, I bet this spot is a huge hit with Bud employees and distributors.

* Monster.com: I want to like this spot. The contrast between the kids and their world-weary monologues is engaging. But Monster.com isn’t exactly a household word, and this spot spends too much time entertaining me at the expense of informing me.

* Frito-Lay: (Doritos) A hot chick sets off the fire sprinklers on a bunch of guys. I’m sure this spot tested well–it’s got a sexy woman parading in front of the target audience while illustrating a single product attribute. And yet, like a Hollywood action flick, the formulaic parts don’t add up to a satisfying whole.

* General Motors: (Cadillac) Being from the Midwest myself, I understand how the guys in Detroit might think “Bad to the Bone” is one bad-ass anthem() that’s gonna give stodgy, old Cadillac a cool, new image. But all it does is reinforce my feeling that Cadillac is 15 years behind the times and still searching for what their brand stands for. This spot is tied with the Catera Duck for brand self-destruction.

* First Union: What a beautiful, incredibly produced commercial. I have no idea what First Union is.

* Land Rover: A neighborhood kid walks up to a new Discovery and asks the mom behind the wheel if her kid can come out and play. It takes forever for the mom to look for the kid inside this big Discovery. Simple, funny. They only tried to make one point and they succeeded. It really stood out from the big-production ads.

* Just for Feet(): A barefoot Kenyan long-distance runner is captured and “shoed” by some safari types. The Kenyan is not happy. Note to client: Did you really mean to demonstrate to the whole country that the best runners in the world don’t want or need your product?

* NFL: NFL players go out of their way to personally thank their fans. This ad will not win awards but tactically, it’s brilliant. The NFL’s message: “We’re not the NBA.”

http://www.latimes.com:80/excite/990204/t000010720.html

Last week, we asked readers to share their opinions of ads shown in the Super Bowl telecast. Budweiser commercials scored with readers, as did the MasterCard spot with famous cartoon characters. Readers generally thought Victoria’s Secret and World Wrestling Federation pushed the limits of taste. A sampling of responses follows.

Anheuser-Busch: The lizard and frog ads were awful, but then I never have liked those guys. The ad with the two Dalmatian puppies who grew up to pass each other-one on a firetruck and one on the Anheuser-Busch wagon-was wonderful! No gimmicks, just good old-fashioned advertising. I loved it. I’m sorry I only got to see it once. Frito-Lay: The Miss USA Doritos ad was definitely for guys only. Wouldn’t buy chips based on that ad. Mail Boxes Etc.: How can you fault a company that gives free advertising to one of its customers, even if the ad was only mediocre? Mars: These were really cute, not offensive, could watch them more than once without screaming. Victoria’s Secret: Another ad strictly for guys. DIANE K. PARGAMENT – West Hills

The First Union Bank has the best advertising campaign on television today. What feelings of uncertainty the ads impart! I always feel a little unsettled with the fear and uncertainty that investing instills having it portrayed in a majestic carnival setting really touches the hot buttons! What a great campaign! DAN ALAN BOSWELL – Upland

MasterCard, utilizing their existing “priceless” campaign, gets my vote for most entertaining commercial during the Super Bowl and all the pregame programming. The cartoon characters placed in precarious (Mr. Magoo), hilarious (Olive Oyl) and vicarious (Fred Flintstone) situations were in itself priceless as well as inventive. JAYNE FINK – San Dimas

Apple Computer: HAL. Simple, funny and effective. Visa check card: Palace guard out of uniform. Possibly the funniest of the bunch, and on point for the product. Friends went nuts over this one. Cadillac Escalade: Cool! Vehicle production sequence with robots was very nifty. Good effects. I want one. Anheuser-Busch (Bud Lite): Beer or toilet paper? Like it’s a contest. Another nominee for funniest, and definitely memorable. Progressive Auto Insurance: ET. Fed up with the shriveled little geek. Almost enough to destroy my normally friendly predisposition toward space aliens. National Football League: Pressing the flesh. Yawn. I’ll believe this one when they show up at my door, without cameras, just to say hello. PATRICK GALLIGAN – Ventura

Best ad by far: Budweiser Dalmatian pup adopted by a fire company. Really a belly laugher with Bud barely mentioned. MasterCard cartoon characters: Very clever and funny use of previous sentimental pitch. Cracker Jack with pony prize: If I hadn’t known it was coming, it would have been even funnier. As for the rest, they were mostly OK or forgettable. AT&T: What are they offering? Yellow Pages: Confusing. NORMAN McCRACKEN – Northridge

The Anheuser-Busch ads were tops in my opinion. I loved the toilet paper versus beer ad for Bud Lite and the commercial for Budweiser in which a flying mouse scares a woman. They were very creative and funny. The Frito-Lay ad with a former Miss USA and ads for the HotJobs.com and the World Wrestling Federation were disgusting, sexist and definitely forgettable. The Monster.com ad was very negative and not at all cute, even using kids. VIRGINIA PEKAR – San Luis Obispo

http://www.foxsports.com:80/js_index.frm?content=/wires/pages/72/spt102572.sml

NEW YORK (AP) Federal regulators are hearing complaints that the World Wrestling Federation went over the line of decency with its raucous Super Bowl commercial. Two TV watchdog groups said Wednesday the commercial should not have run Sunday on a program with such wide appeal as the annual telecast of the NFL’s championship game. But WWF officials said most people who saw the ad including officials at Fox Broadcasting Co., which carried the telecast found nothing offensive about it and said they intend to continue running the ad.

Robert W. Peters, president of the group Morality in Media, called the WWF commercial “one of the most vile commercials ever aired on network TV” even though he conceded he hadn’t seen it.

The American Family Association, another group often critical of sex and violence on television, told the Federal Communications Commission that the ad fell within the agency’s definition of indecency and should not have run in the early evening as it did on Sunday’s Super Bowl broadcast. The American Family Association, which is based in Tupelo, Miss., filed a complaint against its local Fox television affiliate, WLOV in West Point, Miss., and urged others to file similar complaints against their local Fox stations.

The ad in question offered a typical “day at the office” at WWF headquarters in Stamford, Conn. WWF wrestler “Stone Cold” Steve Austin says in the ad that the WWF offers “a nonviolent form of entertainment” just before he slams a folding chair against a passerby. Executives brawled in the lobby and office suites in the ad, and bodies shattered glass partitions.

The scene Roberts and the American Family Association faulted showed a a couple in an embrace with the woman’s legs wrapped around the man’s waist as female wrestler Sable walks by saying “We never use sex to enhance our image.”

“The spot was a tongue-in-cheek parody,” said Jim Byrne, a marketing executive for the WWF. “Everything about it was so over-the-top that for anyone to interpret it literally is interesting.” He said most people got the joke. “There will always be people who take themselves way too seriously who are extremely vocal,” he said.

A call to WLOV was referred after office hours to a lawyer in Washington, and calls to Fox TV network executives for comment were not returned. The FCC has authority to fine broadcast license holders like TV stations. Norman Goldstein, chief of the FCC branch that handles such complaints, said the agency had received 45 complaints about the ad via e-mail through Wednesday morning.

Peters said there probably would have been no complaints about the ad had it run in late-night TV when children are not watching. But he said he was appalled that it was shown during the Super Bowl, which typically draws the year’s biggest TV audience. “The vast majority of parents wouldn’t have any concern about having their 2-year-olds watching it,” he said.

http://nt.excite.com/news/pr/990203/il-starcom-survey

CHICAGO, /PRNewswire/ — Starcom Media Services, a division of the Leo Burnett Company, polled 300 Super Bowl viewers and 200 non-viewers Monday to find out whether the combination of the NFL’s superstars and great advertising really form a winning team. Starcom’s game plan assessed the attention level to the game itself, advertising involvement and awareness, and game day rituals to uncover why Super Bowl advertising scores extra points with viewers.”Our predictions were correct. Sunday’s Super Bowl attracted a particularly attentive crowd that rarely changed channels and was very tuned into both the actual game and the memorable ads shown during breaks,” said Kate Lynch, director of research for Starcom MediaServices.

Do people really watch the Super Bowl? An astounding 45 percent paid attention both during the game and commercial breaks. The viewers included everyone from fanatics, representing 58 percent of the audience, to rejectors who grudgingly watched the game with others. Of the viewers, 44 percent watched the entire game and 36 percent watched most of the game, most likely due to the perception of the game as a “social event” making it more likely for people to stick it out.

And despite the blowout, Denver beat Atlanta 34-19, 48 percent said the game was entertaining.

Super Super Bowl Advertising

According to Lynch, advertising is part of what makes the Super Bowl an event. With 45 percent of viewers watching the commercials overall, 62 percent of those viewers paid more attention to Super Bowl commercials than they do during typical TV viewing. More importantly, the water cooler effect makes Super Bowl ads the Monday morning buzz with 52 percent of viewers talking and appreciating the uniqueness and quality of SuperBowl selling.

Viewer Connection Equals Higher Recall

The research also confirmed that fans under the age of 35 are the super fans of the game. A whopping 74 percent paid more attention to Super Bowl ads versus 50 percent of older viewers. Of all viewers, 83 percent remember seeing beer advertising, while most categories had recall levels of 40 to 45 percent.

“Football fans expect great advertising,” said Wally Hayward, director of sports marketing at Starcom. “When an advertiser’s creative message connects with the fans, the pay out is pro-bowl caliber.”

Starcom Media Services is the leading purchaser of all U.S. media, spending $2.7 billion in 1997. Over the past two years, Starcom has been entrusted with new media assignments in the U.S. totaling over $1.5 billion from Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Miller Brewing Company, Procter & Gamble, The Gap, Kraft Foods, Budget Car Rental, Sara Lee and Diageo. Starcom employs 510 media professionals in the U.S. who provide strategic, tactical and executional media expertise to 47 roster clients.

Leo Burnett (www.leoburnett.com) operates a global network of 211 operating units across 75 markets, including 85 full-service advertising agencies and a variety of specialty marketing services, including direct, database and interactive marketing, sales promotion and public relations. Burnett has produced some of the industry’s most enduring advertising campaigns that have helped build 507 of the world’s leading brands. The network currently handles seven of the world’s 25 most valuable global brands as ranked by Interbrand: McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Walt Disney, Marlboro, Kellogg, Tampax and Nintendo. It also handles 22 other brands in the top 100. Founded in Chicago in 1935 with eight employees and three clients, today Leo Burnett employs more than 8,500 people and posted billings of U.S. $6.6 billion in 1998.

http://www.latimes.com:80/excite/990203/t000010428.html

By ABIGAIL GOLDMAN

Victoria’s Secret’s 30-second Super Bowl ad garnered the lingerie retailer 1 million visits to its Web site within an hour of the spot’s broadcast, company executives said. And the Columbus, Ohio-based maker of all things silky and wearable under clothes is hoping at least some of those visitors will return to the site tonight for a Web simulcast of its supermodel-laden New York City fashion show. “People missed the point. It was like, ‘Victoria’s Secret is running an ad in the Super Bowl, wink, wink, nudge, nudge,’ ” said Chief Creative Officer Ed Razek. “A million people stopped what they were doing, as the game was running, to get up and do something else.”

Razek said the company has not tallied the number of sales during the high-volume hour, but he said the figures might be low because the number of people trying to access the site slowed the system. Ads during the Atlanta Falcons-Denver Broncos matchup averaged $1.6 million for 30 seconds. It was the lowest-rated Super Bowl since 1990, according to early viewership reports.

http://www.mostnewyork.com:80/1999-02-02/New_York_Now/Television/a-18340.asp?last6days=1

By RICHARD HUFF Daily News Staff Writer

Sunday’s Broncos-Falcons face-off on Fox, despite a typically humongous Super Bowl audience, will go down as the second-lowest-rated NFL championship game in 28 years, according to Nielsen figures released yesterday. The Broncos’ 34-19 win averaged a 40.2 rating (percentage of the nation’s 99.4 million TV homes) and a 61 share (percentage of the sets in use), which was off 10% from last year’s Packers-Broncos game that averaged a 44.5 rating/67 share. (The lowest-rated game since 1970 was the 1990 matchup between the 49ers and Broncos, a 49ers blowout that averaged a 39.0/63.) Still, the only program in Fox’ 12-year history to generate higher ratings was the 1997 Packers-Patriots Super Bowl, which averaged a 43.3 rating/65 share. And Fox did rake in a king’s ransom in advertising money Sunday, selling 58 30-second spots during the game for $1.6 million each. That’s nearly $93 million. Plus a better-than-usual premium for ad time in the nearly eight hours of pre- and post-game falderal. According to Fox, it accumulated more than $150 million, for the highest-grossing single day of revenues in TV history.

An estimated 127,500,000 viewers watched at least a portion of Sunday’s telecast, according to Fox research, which makes it – even with the lowerhousehold ratings – the fourth most-watched Super Bowl of the ’90s and the sixth most-watched TV telecast ever. The huge influx of viewers – the game averaged 83,700,000 at any given moment – made the preview of “Family Guy” that followed the football game the second-most-watched series debut in Fox history. The animated series, which will move into the network’s prime-time lineup in March, was watched by 21,900,000 viewers. (The most-watched debut in Fox’ history was the Jan. 14, 1990, opening of “The Simpsons,” which was watched by 24,500,000 viewers.)

Ratings for “Family Guy” were off 69% from the end of the Super Bowl. Following last season’s Super Bowl on NBC, ratings fell 59% for the first half-hour of a one-hour “3rd Rock From the Sun.” An episode of “The Simpsons,” airing after “Family Guy” Sunday night, drew 19,100,000 viewers. Thanks to Sunday’s overall ratings performance, Fox has now tied NBC for the season in the advertiser-desired 18- to 49-year-old audience category. “It is a milestone,” said Giles Lundberg, senior vice president of research for Fox. Never before, he noted, has Fox been No. 1 in the advertiser-desired demographic on a seasonal basis.

No surprise, ratings for Sunday’s game fluctuated with the tenor of play on the field. The telecast peaked between 7 and 7:30 p.m., with a 41.5rating/64 share, when it appeared the Falcons still had a chance. The first half-hour of Sunday’s game was down 2% from the Broncos-Packers game last year. The last half-hour of Sunday’s game was off 20% from last year. By the end of the game – with the Falcons hopelessly beaten – the game slipped to a 38.1 rating/56 share. As could be expected, the game was a huge hit in the hometowns of the teams involved. In Denver, 83% of the televisions on were tuned to Fox. And in Atlanta, 79% of the sets on were tuned to the game, generating the highest numbers for a Super Bowl ever in Atlanta. Locally, 56% of the sets turned on were tuned to WNYW/Ch. 5′s telecast of the Super Bowl.

http://www.latimes.com:80/excite/990202/t000010062.html

A lopsided Denver win produces the lowest TV rating for the Super Bowl since 1990.

By GREG JOHNSON, Times Staff Writer

Advertisers who paid an average of $1.6 million for 30 seconds of commercial time during Sunday’s lopsided Super Bowl probably came away as blue as four-time Super Bowl loser Dan Reeves. The broadcast was the lowest-rated Super Bowl since 1990, when the San Francisco 49ers blew out the Denver Broncos 55 to 10. The early viewership rating for Denver’s 34-19 victory over the Atlanta Falcons was a 40.2, down 8% from last year’s 44.1 rating. Given the game’s history of producing one-sided contests, Sunday’s rout was no real surprise for viewers or advertisers. But marketing industry observers say that advertisers, like Atlanta Falcons fans, went into the game with their fingers crossed.

“Advertisers go into the second half hoping for a game that will be competitive, and that they won’t lose eyeballs in the second half,” said Peter Kaplan, co-chief executive of National Media Group, a New York City sports marketing and public relations firm. “Clearly, our preference was for our . . . spot that ran in the second quarter,” said Sandra Deem, president of corporate relations for Charlotte, N.C.-based First Union Corp., which also ran an ad during the final two minutes of the game. “That’s where we vested most of our effort.”

Executives at the World Wrestling Federation say they’re pleased with their first Super Bowl commercial, a third-quarter ad that parodied professional wrestling’s penchant for embellishing its matches with violence and sex. “If I really wanted to put my philosophy hat on, I could argue that maybe what I really want are the die-hard fans who are there in the third quarter,” said Jim Byrne, senior vice president for the Stamford, Conn.-based WWF. “And, of course, if you’re advertising in the first quarter, you have the bulk of the audience there, with all that has to recommend it.”

Football fans who gathered at places like the Legends sports bar in Long Beach whooped and applauded for their favorite commercials, which included spots for Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser and Bud Light.

Tom Perusi, 41, signaled thumbs up for a Budweiser ad about Dalmatian puppies separated at birth. “And the lizards,” he said, referring to the talking reptiles featured in another Budweiser ad, “they’re excellent.”

Other crowd pleasers included a Victoria’s Secret spot touting its online fashion show, and an ad with an enormous Cracker Jack bag. “The ads’ people put a lot of thought into them,” said Manuel Trevino, 38.

“There’s humor in them. They make you laugh. The commercials are part of the program.” Anheuser-Busch, the biggest advertiser during the game with nine spots, also came out on top in two nationwide surveys of Super Bowl viewers. SAA Research of Farmington Hills, Mich., said 30% of viewers ranked Budweiser as their favorite advertiser. And TV Guide said the five most popular commercials in the game all were for Budweiser.

But, as the ratings suggest, the top two teams in the NFL and the best that Madison Avenue had to offer wasn’t enough. Some observers complained that the dearth of action on the field was compounded by a lack of memorable advertising during commercial breaks. “Even though the amount of money being spent on these ads was tremendous, I didn’t see any dramatic, breakthrough advertising,” said Jim Johnson, president and chief executive of Enterprise IG, a New York-based corporate identity firm.

Despite the low ratings, companies that paid record amounts for commercial time maintained that the big game remained the place to be, even during the second half, when it was obvious that the Falcons lacked the horsepower to keep up with the Broncos.

First Union, in its first trip to the Super Bowl, created a new 60-second image advertisement that ran during the second quarter. But, rather than spending heavily on another new commercial to air late in the fourth quarter, First Union ran an existing ad. Deem said the “overall package” was cost-effective because the second ad entitled First Union to additional signage in the stadium. And, while the financial services giant advertised late in the fourth quarter, Deem said “we didn’t purchase the second spot until late in the advertising game, when Fox made us an offer that we couldn’t refuse.”

Times staff writer Denise Gellene contributed to this report.

http://deseretnews.com:80/dn/view/0,1249,30009214,00.html?

Lobster, mouse and 2 pups helped peddle products

By Skip Wollenberg AP business writer

NEW YORK – Add a desperate lobster, a goggled mouse and two cute pups to the cast of critters that Super Bowl advertisers pressed into service in hopes of catching the eye of TV’s biggest yearly audience.

Celebrities, musical scores and the Internet also played a role in the ads on this year’s telecast, which saw Denver trounce Atlanta 34-19 for its second consecutive National Football League championship title. More than 30 advertisers paid an average of $1.6 million for each half-minute commercial slot on Sunday’s telecast, according to executives at Fox Broadcasting Co. That was up 23 percent from last year’s record $1.3 million.

Sponsors were expecting about 130 million people to tune in for at least part of the telecast, which usually delivers the biggest audience of the year for any single program. Anheuser-Busch Inc., the nation’s biggest brewer and the Super Bowl’s biggest advertiser, introduced new critters to go along with its familiar frogs and lizards.

A lobster headed for a restaurant’s boiling pot grabbed a bottle of Budweiser and used it to keep the chef and others at bay while he crawled out the door in a Bud ad. And a Dalmatian puppy passed over as the new firehouse dog has the last laugh on his sibling in another Bud ad when they pass two years later – the rejected pup now rides on the beer wagon pulled by Clydesdale horses.

The mouse in goggles appeared in a Bud Light ad in which a man sends him flying into the next apartment, where it drives the pretty neighbor to the man’s place with a six-pack. The brewer, which ran nine commercials that consumed more than five of the 28 minutes in the telecast, ran two ads featuring Louie the Lizard and the Bud frogs he tried to electrocute in last year’s Super Bowl telecast. In one ad, Louie tells the frogs all three of them have been fired and is shocked the frogs can speak fluently. In the second ad, the frogs work Louie over. “Slap the punk,” one frog encourages the other.

Anheuser-Busch marketers say they expect to retire the frogs and lizard characters this year before their popularity wears thin. Celebrities were in several ads. Actress Halle Berry swam after the new M&Ms Crispy character in one ad, Jerry Seinfeld made a fictional cross-country drive for American Express, Jon Lovitz posed as the phone book author for Yellow Pages Publishers and Cuba Gooding Jr. unintentionally blew up a car in an ad for Pepsi One.

Frito-Lay Inc. featured former Miss USA Ali Landry for a second consecutive Super Bowl appearance for Doritos, this time setting off the library sprinkler system as she eats the new barbecue variety. The World Wrestling Federation had its own stars Stone Cold Steve Austin, Sable and the Undertaker extol WWF entertainment as executives brawled on a “typical day” at its headquarters.

The Oldsmobile division of General Motors Corp. made its Super Bowl debut with an ad whose hip-hop musical track alone made it clear that Olds wants to reach a younger audience.

http://www.eonline.com:80/News/Items/0,1,4267,00.html

It was a lackluster game between teams from the nation’s No. 10 (Atlanta) and No. 14 (Denver) markets, the outcome was pretty much decided midway through the second quarter, and only the John Elway-led Denver Broncos enjoy a significant national following. In other words, Super Bowl XXXIII wasn’t pretty.

Still, the worst-rated Super Bowl since Denver lost to San Francisco in 1990, and second-lowest rated since 1971, did what it had to do: get the win for Fox. Fox earned $150 million in ad revenue for the broadcastóthe biggest single-day payout in tube history. And even with low numbers, the Super Bowl helped Fox win the weekly Nielsen race. It also managed to vault Fox into a season first-place tie with NBC for that all-important, advertiser-friendly 18-49 demographic, a first for Rupert Murdoch’s television net.

All told, Sunday’s 34-19 Denver Broncos win produced an average rating of 40.2 for Fox, capturing 61 percent of the viewing audienceóabout 83.7 viewers, according to Nielsen figures out Tuesday.

Still, comparing this year’s ratings to games nine years, or even 28 years ago, is like comparing footballs to hockey pucks, since the overall tube audience is bigger than ever. An estimated 127.5 million viewers watched at least part of the game. The end result: This crummy game was the sixth most-watched TV broadcast, behind the ’93, ’94, ’96, ’97 and ’98 Super Bowls. And dud or not, this was the kind of “big event” boost Fox was looking for in 1993 when it began going after big-time pro sports. Analysts give Fox an outside shot at beating NBC for the season among the 18-49 crowd (CBS will likely win the overall ratings race). But, of course, that will depend a lot on the Rupert Net’s non-sports programming. For that, Fox did what network’s always do when they show the Super Bowl – hype the bejesus out of their shows.

For Fox – showcasing the midseason debut of its animated sitcom Family Guy, which was previewed after the game it had nearly 12 hours of pre-, post- and actual-game air time to show things like Celebrity Trivia (Melrose Place stars in lingerie asking each other football questions) and another in-the-stands shot of Ally McBeal star Calista Flockhart (Fox zoomed in on her at the World Series last October, too).

Thanks to the hype and the huge lead in, Family Guy produced the second highest 18-49 ratings ever for a Fox premiere or preview, getting an 11.6 overall rating and a 26 percent audience share. Meanwhile, the show that produced Fox’s still-reigning debut record, The Simpsons, enjoyed its best ratings in four years, following Family Guy with a (you guessed it) Super Bowl-themed episode.