Superbowl-ads.com Article Archive

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nm/20011229/bs/bizmedia_superbowl_dc_1.html

By Adam Pasick

NEW YORK (Reuters) – When the Super Bowl rolls around this February, the world’s most highly-priced advertising vehicle won’t be the only the game in town.

Fox, a unit of News Corp. Ltd. (NCP.AX) (NYSE:NWS – news) that is televising the game, is not only facing the worst advertising downturn in decades, but is also competing for advertisers with the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, which begins a mere five days after Super Bowl XXXVI.

Pitting the world’s biggest football game against bobsledding, figure skating and skiing, Fox says it has sold between 75 percent and 80 percent of its 30-second ad slots, but admitted it has not been the easiest of tasks.

“There’s an impact having the Olympics right on the heels of the Super Bowl,” said Fox Sports spokesman Lou D’Ermilio. “It being a United States-based Olympic Games, there’s that much more sports-based (ad) inventory.”

NBC, the unit of General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE – news) that is televising the Winter Olympics, has sold more than 90 percent of its Olympics ad slots.

D’Ermilio said Fox is about on pace with the number of ads sold by CBS, which hosted last year’s Super Bowl. Fox expects ad rates “north of $2 million — in the same general ballpark as what CBS got last year,” he said.

Citing the difficulty of selling enough ads, Fox has scaled back its Super Bowl pre-game advertising to five hours, down from 7.6 hours when it last hosted the game in 1999.

DOT-COM DEATH

That year was the banner year for dot-com companies, when seventeen firms with the now notorious suffix took out Super Bowl ads. That number fell to only three last year, as the dot-coms crashed back to earth.

Job advertising Web site operator Monster.com, which made its reputation and built its brand through a series of well-received Super Bowl ads, has yet to commit to a Super Bowl spot this year, opting for Olympic ads and sponsorships along with ads in college football bowl games.

“From a brand exposure standpoint, we know we’re going to be very visible with or without the Super Bowl,” said Peter Blacklow, senior vice president of marketing for Monster. “It becomes a nice thing to do but we certainly don’t have the reliance we’ve had in previous years.”

Monster is still in negotiations with Fox to buy a Super Bowl spot, Blacklow said, and would like to have an ad during the game “if the price makes sense.”

“We think the Super Bowl fits very well in the mix, but unlike other years it’s just part of the puzzle,” he said.

HotJobs.com (Nasdaq:HOTJ – news), Monster.com’s one-time competitor and current merger partner — although the deal has been thrown into question by a rival bid from Internet firm Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO – news) — is sticking with the Super Bowl.

Four years ago, the company devoted a startling one-half of the company’s annual revenues to pay for a Super Bowl ad.

“The Super Bowl is a unique program, where the advertising shares the center stage — that’s not true for the Olympics,” said Chief Executive Dimitri Boylan. “The Super Bowl has paid off for us three times already, and we’re pretty confident it will do the same this year.”

HotJobs has not yet committed to buy any Olympic ads, according to a spokeswoman.

LAST-MINUTE SALES

Fox Sports spokesman D’Ermilio said that although Super Bowl ad sales have been slower, the network still expects a full slate of ads.

“Folks are, given the climate, waiting longer until they commit to the game,” he said. “We’re confident it will be sold out.”

But the difficult economic climate may cause some advertisers to question the wisdom of a Super Bowl spot in a downturn.

“Money is just so short that given the pricing of a Super Bowl spot, do you want to blow a big hole in your ad budget on February 3?” said Forrester Research advertising analyst Jim Nail.

To sweeten the pot for advertisers, Fox may offer on-air mentions or sponsorships, Nail added.

“The Super Bowl has generally not had to offer incentives, because it usually sells out, but this year is a different year, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Fox threw in something extra.”

The most difficult spots to sell are in the fourth quarter, according to Tim Spengler of Initiative Media, a media buying and planning firm, because a lopsided game can drive away viewers.

“The fourth quarter is almost sold differently than the first three,” he said. “If you tracked the ratings, they only go down 10 to 15 percent even in a blowout, but the attentiveness declines and the environment changes

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nf/20020206/tc_nf/16190&printer=1

Like the St. Louis Rams, HotJobs (Nasdaq: HOTJ – news), Monster.com and E*Trade (NYSE: ET – news) were edged out in Super Bowl XXXVI as AT&T Wireless’ mLife joined the New England Patriots in the winner’s circle. According to a survey by Jupiter Media Metrix (Nasdaq: JMXI – news), AT&T cashed in on its Super Bowl ad campaign to promote its new mLife wireless brand, registering 681,000 unique visitors on game day, up from 34,000 the day before.

Get an mLife

“mLife really came out of nowhere,” said Charles Buchwalter, vice president of media research at Jupiter Media Metrix, adding that the surge in Web traffic “bordered on breathtaking.”

Buchwalter added that most of this year’s Super Bowl ads were for familiar e-commerce brands that are likely to enjoy longer-term results, but the novelty of the mLife ad campaign led to immediate online response.

Of those who visited the mLife site on Super Bowl Sunday, 23 percent viewed the registration page and 5 percent actually completed the registration process.

“A 5 percent response rate is a reasonably healthy number for a brand-new brand,” Buchwalter said.

Pepsi, which ran ads featuring Britney Spears, also saw visits to its site increase during the game.

Also-Ran Ads

According to the Jupiter report, traffic to other advertisers — including HotJobs, Monster, Schwab and E*Trade — remained steady or decreased slightly, which Buchwalter said was “no particular surprise.”

Monster’s visitor numbers dropped from 652,000 on Saturday to 473,000 on Sunday, and the number of HotJobs visitors fell from 360,000 on Saturday to 299,000 on Sunday.

Unlike the mLife ads, those developed by Monster and HotJobs were not necessarily meant to drive immediate visits to their Web sites.

“Monster and HotJobs are destinations that people are utilizing anyway,” Jupiter analyst Patrick Keane said.

Super Bowl traffic to HotJobs was down from the previous week but up significantly from two weeks before the game, largely due to the online ad campaign the company has been running for the last six to seven weeks, Keene said.

Monday, Monday

Mark Karasu, director of advertising and marketing at HotJobs, pointed out that because of the nature of career sites, they may have seen increased traffic on the Monday after the Super Bowl rather than on game day itself.

In fact, Monster claimed that in the 24-hour period after the Big Game, it recorded more than 28 million page views, up 167 percent from Super Bowl Sunday and up 57 percent from the same period last year.

The number of job seekers increased 93 percent the day after the game, according to the company, while resume submissions increased 84 percent.

The only site to show a decline in Web traffic from last year’s Super Bowl Sunday was E*Trade, which this year used its Super Bowl spots to launch its new brand identity — E*Trade Financial.

According to Jupiter’s measurements, traffic to the E*Trade site fell to 120,000 unique visitors on Sunday from 174,000 the day before the game.

http://www.salon.com/people/feature/2002/02/05/britney_gen/index.html

By Steve Burgess

How about that. For once the football game was as interesting as the commercials. Which meant that for almost four solid hours on Sunday, millions of viewers could not safely dash to the bathroom. The drawdown at approximately 10:10 p.m. EST must have made city reservoirs swirl like toilet bowls.

You can’t ignore the ads anymore. They have their own Web site. Ever since director Ridley Scott’s 1984 Macintosh spot, the commercials have been a major part of the annual Super Bowl show — a telecast that draws approximately 800 million viewers worldwide. (One survey claims that 16 percent of viewers tune in only for the commercials, and 58 percent pay more attention to the ads than to the game.) Even as endless player interviews and game prognosticators droned on through the week, particular ads were generating their own pre-telecast hype. This year’s advertisers included surprise newcomers — the White House — and surprising dropouts, like EDS, whose “Herding Cats” and “Running With the Squirrels” ads were previous Super Bowl standouts.

Receiving the most pre-game publicity was Pepsi’s Britney Spears extravaganza

http://media.guardian.co.uk/columnists/story/0,7550,644743,00.html

Only Britney Spears and a comic monkey stood out from the crowd of ad spots in this week’s Super Bowl

Stefano Hatfield 

It’s an hour after the Super Bowl, and I am struggling to remember more than a couple of the ads that had been so hyped all month. It was the event that sport reclaimed, as the New England Patriots beat the hot favourites, the St Louis Rams, 20-17 with the last kick of a thrilling game.

If the game and the impressive half-time performance from U2 for once lived up to all expectations, the “ad bowl” was decidedly unremarkable. The notable exception was Pepsi, which produced a series of BBDO-produced commercials starring Britney Spears acting out Pepsi spots from the past four decades.

Directed by the ageless Joe Pytka, they were fun and inventive. The first 90-second spot featured Britney through the decades, the second was the “1958″ spot that viewers had voted as their favourite in an online poll taken before the game itself. In its self-confidence, ambition, humour and relevance to its target audience, the Britney spot was by far the most successful of the show.

The only real competition this year appeared to come from E-Trade, which again featured its famous comic monkey in a Busby Berkeley spoof that announced E-Trade’s changed structure. Once again there was a self-referential moment as E-trade’s CEO appeared at the end to berate the monkey for the choice of a musical.

Other notable spots included Rudy Giuliani saying thank you to America (courtesy of Monster.com), Kevin Bacon hamming his way through a lame Visa commercial, Danny de Vito and a host of mutinous puppets in an inventive ad for Lipton’s Brisk.

There were a couple of anti-drug commercials directed by Britain’s Tony Kaye, which were startling because they linked buying drugs with supporting terrorism.

There was a fun Levi’s spot “crazy legs” and then a series of curious teaser commercials for something named “mlife” (the new AT & T Digital service) which stood out but were absolutely mystifying.

Budweiser, the “winner” of the ad bowl for the past three years, had a quiet game despite having multiple slots. A reprise of the New Jersey boys “How you doin’?” spot and the klutzy Cedric for Bud Light were the highlights in a series of quiet chuckles from DDB Chicago.

However, Budweiser’s other agency, Hill Holliday, also produced what was arguably the most excruciatingly schmaltzy spot of the show: the brewer’s famous Clydesdale horses approaching a twin towers-less New York in confusion before genuflecting silently before the Statue of Liberty. I suppose we should be grateful that there were not more ads referring to September 11.

There were seven car advertisers in the game – Cadillac, Mercedes, Mercury, Honda, Jeep, Dodge and VW. Between them they must have spent over $20m (the average cost of a spot this year was $1.9m for 30-seconds of Fox airtime), and not one of them could create an ad memorable an hour after the game’s conclusion.

And there were terrible – really terrible – ads from Taco Bell, Burger King and AOL, but the rest weren’t even interesting enough to be terrible. They proved merely to be expensive wallpaper.

The tedium was enough to make one hanker after the wacky creativity of the “dot-bowl” of 2000. Only three brands were brave enough to put a dot.com at the end of their names – FedEx, Monster and HotJobs.

There were no particularly deep or profound commercials this year, nor, with the exception of Pepsi, Brisk and E-Trade, particularly lavish commercials. Instead, cliches were paraded everywhere, and when in doubt they rolled out animals for the cuteness factor (Budweiser, Blockbuster, E-Trade and others).

In fact the ad bowl was an accurate reflection of the state of the industry itself: cautious, conservative, low-key, relying on cliches and lacking in subtlety, and, most of all, confidence.

When you’re left feeling grateful for Britney Spears and the E-Trade monkey, then there’s not really any further comment to make.

· Stefano Hatfield is editorial director of Ad Age Global and Creativity magazines

http://www.ocregister.com/news/ads00204cci.shtml

A panel of experts looks at what might pay off for commercials costing $2 million for 30 seconds.

By TONY SAAVEDRA The Orange County Register

There were the usual yucks. The coy teasers.

And a commercial that some advertising experts said made them want to cry — and buy more Budweiser.

Anheuser-Busch and its nine spots during Super Bowl XXXVI won the most raves among a panel of filmmakers, commercial producers and advertising executives assembled Sunday by the Register.

Besides the usual high jinks that are a staple of Budweiser commercials, there was what some saw as an elegant, emotional spot featuring the Clydesdales, genuflecting toward New York City in tribute to the thousands killed Sept. 11.

“It had a holy feeling that I wasn’t expecting, and it moved me,” said Janice Arrington, Orange County’s film commissioner, whose job, in part, is to get commercials filmed here. “If I wasn’t sure what beer I wanted to drink, that would make me want a Bud Light.”

The Super Bowl is traditionally where advertising pulls out its big guns and showcases its best and brightest commercials. It’s the place where “Whassup?” was born. But this year’s Super Bowl, in the midst of a devastating advertising recession, had traditional advertisers bowing away from the reported price tag of $2 million per 30-second spot.

Many of those who did advertise chose a patriotic tone, an attempt to celebrate America’s heritage, from its vintage cars to its vintage soft drinks.

Then, there were the serious messages, including a tribute by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and two White House spots linking buying drugs with financing terrorists.

THE BUZZ

The real buzz, according to the Register’s panelists, was created by the regal Clydesdales.

“It gave me goose bumps, and you have to give anybody credit who can give you goose bumps in 30 seconds,” said Bob Owen, a scriptwriter from Owen & Owen in Mission Viejo.

Giuliani’s thank-you to America, filmed in black- and-white and set against a stark New York skyline, failed to generate the same emotion among the panel.

Eric Spiegler, group creative director for the advertising firm Foote, Cone and Belding, Southern California, said he was bothered that the Giuliani spot carried Monster.com’s logo. Budweiser left its name off the Clydesdale commercial.

Arrington had a different reason for disliking the Giuliani spot.

“I thought his eyes were wandering while he was reading the prompter.”

Budweiser also scored high among judges with its humorous fare – the falconer whose bird fetches Bud Lights from terrified patrons at a sidewalk café; the woman who frets over what Valentine’s Day card to buy her boyfriend, while he just picks one up at the liquor store during a beer run; or the husband who dives for a Bud that his wife has strategically placed on their bed – only to slide off the satin sheets and through the window.

The beer brewer also ran a commercial touting the wisdom of using a designated driver.

“They appealed to the patriotic, to the all-American, to a cross-section that anybody can relate to,” said Art Royce, an Irvine-based producer of commercials.

“They got my allegiance, they really made me feel a good sense that they were with the country.”

WEAK YEAR?

Pepsi’s much-heralded spots with pop diva Britney Spears had a comforting, nostalgic feel, although some panelists said it lacked creativity.

“There’s not much going on there, except Britney Spears is a big star and she has a lot of fans and Pepsi has had a lot of jingles,” said Spiegler.

Arrington enjoyed the Pepsi commercials, featuring Spears traveling in time through the ’50s, ’60s and so on, singing Pepsi jingles.

“They suddenly came back to me,” Arrington said.

Vern Vihlene, a Laguna Hills film producer, gave the Pepsi commercials a six on a scale of 10.

“Retro always works, (but) it’s been done many times before,” Vihlene said.

“I didn’t see the creativity this year.

“As far as I’m concerned, we’ve had two kind of weak years in a row.”

If you missed the second half of the game, you’re probably wondering what an “mlife” is.

AT&T ran four spots depicting a farmer, two bookkeepers and a Chinese grandfather all extolling the virtues of an “mlife” – without explaining what it is.

The answer finally comes in a fifth commercial: mobile phones.

Was the mystery worth the payoff? Some of the panelists had their doubts.

“I think they wasted a lot of money,” said Vihlene. “It leaves people puzzled and may not entice enough of them to check it out.”

The Coen brothers, known for such cinematic feats as “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “Fargo,” scored with their depiction of a tax expert droning about the new laws to a sterile room full of tax preparers.

They, in effect, produced a commercial that was intentionally boring with the underlying message, “Let H&R Block do the tedious stuff.”

“What a horrible subject, but I think it will be effective,” Vihlene said.

The spot for the new CTS model Cadillac was an attempt to appeal to the 40-and-over crowd, the folks whose dads drove Caddys.

The commercial shows a vintage Caddy traveling through time and encountering the new version, with Led Zeppelin’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll” playing in the background.

That one, the panelists said, was a fumble.

“There was nothing that said, ‘Here, watch me, this is special,’” said Owen.

“There was no statement made. It was too subtle for the Super Bowl.”

http://www.pennlive.com/news/expresstimes/index.ssf?/news/expresstimes/pa/abn0204_.html

Yes, it’s time once again to dip into the “commercial bowl” and pluck out the best TV ads shown during that guys-running-around-griddle-iron fight over a ball that’s not even shaped right.

This year, I’m introducing a simple rating scheme. Keeping in fashion with this bowl motif, I’ve assigned a specific number of bowls to each ad. Good ads get popcorn bowls, because there’s nothing like eating popcorn during great entertainment. Bad ads get toilet bowls, because, at $2 million a pop, these ads should NOT be flush with failure.

Britney Spears performs Pepsi songs through five decades. First of all, Coke IS better. Second, Spears makes me throw up. Give this commercial five toilet bowls, one for each decade.

Airplanes fly over a beach pulling banners behind them. This was some dot-com company. One big industrial revolution era pull-chain toilet bowl.

Same goes for mlife.com. One kid in the ad asks, “What’s an mlife.” Good question. Make that two pull-chain toilet bowls.

But lets give mlife.com a big, bulging oversized popcorn bowl for a later commercial which begins with a series of close-ups of belly buttons, then moves to an operating table where a woman has just given birth. As the doctor reaches for the instrument to cut the umbilical cord, a voice says, “We are all meant to lead a wireless life.”

Bud Light’s falcon is trained to snatch bottles of beer from tables at an outdoor cafe where it terrorizes customers. This is funny. Seven popcorn bowls.

Budweiser Clydesdale horses pull the Anheuser-Busch beer wagon over hill and dale to a site overlooking the New York City skyline, where they turn toward Sept. 11′s ground zero, and bow. This one just feels good and right. Seven popcorn bowls with butter.

Dockers pants worn by a guy on the dance floor while all the other guys wear black dresses. “Finally, guys have an answer to the little black dress.” Pretty clever. Three popcorn bowls and a dash of salt to the guys who bravely squeezed into those dresses.

Brisk ice tea puppets, including a tiny Danny Devito, are fired because the new Brisk “sells itself.” Three popcorn bowls just to watch weather guy Al Roker get smushed with puppet-heaved vegetables, with one toilet bowl because it hints at a never-ending series of these commercials.

Mel Gibson trailer advertising the August 2002 release of his new movie “Signs.” First, anything with Mel Gibson in it gets my wife’s vote and she is the keeper of the popcorn bowl. So Gibson gets a popcorn bowl. Second, the trailer sent a chill down my spine. Four more popcorn bowls for that.

Kevin Bacon having to prove his identification to buy something. One popcorn bowl for Bacon, but two toilet bowls for the ad because I forgot what he was selling.

The dolphin who learned to talk by going to Yahoo.com? Other dot-com commercial copywriters … take a lesson. Four popcorn bowls.

Untoasted submarine sandwich buns vs. toasted ones? During a taste test, a woman begins to choose the toasted one. From off camera, someone shoots a poisoned dart into her neck and she falls face first into the untoasted one. A researcher writes the result and says, “Dives right into the untoasted sub.” The announcer says, “The only way to beat Quiznos subs is to cheat.” Eight popcorn bowls.

Chevy trucks. This was a plain vanilla ad just before halftime. This is the Super Bowl, for cripes sake. Show a little creativity. This gets 72 stinky toilet bowls for not even trying.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani delivers a message of hope. The black and white ad with a silhouette of the Empire State Building in the background was very effective. It was paid for by Monster.com, Giuliani – America’s mayor – didn’t charge a dime for his time, and so it deserves a sterling silver popcorn bowl.

That took us all to halftime when, oh, by the way, the New England Patriots were winning 14-3.

Give those St. Louis Rams an entire outhouse.

Write to Tony Nauroth at 30 N. Fourth St., Easton, PA 18044, call him at 610-258-7171, or e-mail him at news@express-times.com.

http://www.arizonarepublic.com/sports/articles/0204goody0204.html

Rudy still rules.

Giuliani’s succinct message of appreciation for support shown after the Sept. 11 attacks stood head and shoulders above other Super Bowl commercials Sunday.

“Now more than ever, we are one nation,” the former New York City mayor said. “For all New Yorkers, I just want to say, ‘Thank you, America.’ ” The black-and-white ad was sponsored by Monster.com, a fact we tastefully didn’t learn until the commercial ended.

What it lacked in glitz, it more than made up for in effectiveness, proving that a heartfelt, bare-bones message means more than any overproduced, red-white-and-blue, song-and-dance, feel-good, pseudo-patriotic musical number ever could.

Of course, it wasn’t hard to rise to the top this year. Fox, the network broadcasting the game, didn’t sell all its ad spots until a few days before the game; 30 seconds commanded a little less than $2 million, down from the $2.1 million CBS charged last year.

But this wasn’t a question of tight money in a bad economy. It was a question of execution. People used to say Super Bowl ads were more entertaining than the game.

Not this year, not by a long shot. Great game. Lousy commercials.

Is there some post-modern movement in comedy dictating that you should vaguely suggest humor instead of make people laugh? Only a couple that tried to be funny were.

The funniest was the Bud Light ad in which a woman tries to seduce a man. She’s upstairs, cooing that she’s wearing a teddy. Nothing. She’s put satin sheets on the bed. Nada. She has Bud Light. Boom! He’s off, sprinting up the stairs, tearing off his clothes, diving onto the bed . . . zip! He slides off the sheets out the window.

It was silly, surprising and funny. So there.

The other chuckle-worthy spot was a retirement-advisement ad from Charles Schwab, a company not noted for its hilarity. Barry Bonds takes batting practice when a mysterious voice booms, “It’s time. It’s time to walk into retirement. Why hang around just to break the all-time home run record?”

Eventually we learn that the voice is that of home run king Hank Aaron. Ha.

Other ads fell flat.

Britney Spears’ Pepsi commercial, in which she soullessly recreated several Pepsi ads through the years – teeny bopper, hippie, surfer, whatever – did nothing to make me want to drink Pepsi or buy a Britney CD, which presumably was the point.

If anything it made me want to drink corn liquor and listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd while picking roasted squirrel out of my teeth with a big splinter.

A Budweiser commercial began with Clydesdales pulling their beer wagon. Starting on a snowy farm, they eventually made it to New York, where they stood in front of the Statue of Liberty; the horses then bowed in salute. Classy tribute or callous use of tragedy to sell beer? And when did the Clydesdales become an American icon?

Subway continues to make commercials starring that Jared guy, the fat fellow who lost weight equivalent to a Volkswagen Beetle or whatever on a diet of subs. Only now they don’t even identify him. He’s just there, as if we all know him.

Maybe he hangs out with the Clydesdales.

Anti-drug ads, pointing out that buying drugs may help fund terrorism, were a buzz kill, which was the point – in other words, they were effective. But a Quizno’s sub commercial tried to make the case that maiming is always good for a laugh. It’s not.

It’s the second straight year of lackluster Super Bowl commercials. Maybe it’s a trend. Maybe companies should find a better way to spend $2 million.

Like investing in Enron.

Reach Goodykoontz at (602) 444-8974 or bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20020204/bs_usatoday/3825593

Bruce Horovitz USA TODAY

Perhaps Anheuser-Busch should bottle and sell something besides beer: its Super Bowl ad formula.

For a fourth consecutive year, Anheuser-Busch broadcast the best-liked TV commercial in the USA TODAY’s 14th annual Ad Meter. The ad featured a Bud Light-loving guy whose wife lures him with a bottle but quickly loses him to some slick satin sheets that send him flying out the bedroom window.

To add insult to the rest of the advertisers, Anheuser-Busch broadcast four of the five best-liked ads. The No. 2 ad featured a beer-loving falcon that wreaks havoc on a café in search of a Bud Light. No. 3 featured a woman kickboxing a guy for an ill-spoken come-on line at a bar.

In a Super Bowl surrounded by images of patriotism and flag-waving, it was humor with a twist in advertising that ultimately won most viewers’ appreciation. More than half the 56 ads broadcast during the game had some kind of comedic punch line.

“Don’t you think we need a good laugh?” asks Denise Speed, a 37-year-old stay-at-home mom from Washington, D.C. “After the last four months, we need a lot to laugh about.”

But there’s nothing funny about the stakes: Advertisers paid about $1.9 million for each 30-second segment. About 130 million viewers tuned in to the nation’s football championship, which has become almost as well-known for its advertising as its athleticism.

Anheuser-Busch ads never stopped clicking. One flag-waving ad, featuring the famous Clydesdales taking a long journey through the winter snow to pay their respects to the World Trade Center victims, scored especially high among women who wanted their heartstrings plucked more than they wanted their funny bones tickled.

By most standards, this was the best crop of Super Bowl ads in years. Advertisers broadly succeeded in making viewers laugh — a task that can be especially difficult during the tension of the Super Bowl game. But after the drama of Sept. 11, the public finally seems ready to laugh. And laugh hard.

“This year, I’d rather see the funny ones than the serious ones,” says Angela Alexander, a 29-year-old junior accountant from Alexandria, Va.

Some, however, weren’t laughing at the violent nature of some of A-B’s ads. “I just can’t stand the violent ones,” says Brenda Rupli, a 59-year-old education outreach coordinator from Silver Spring, Md. “I’ve been sensitized to violence since 9-11.”

But no one had better luck than Anheuser-Busch. Company executives began planning their Super Bowl ads the day after last year’s big game. Hundreds of ideas are discussed — and rejected before tapping the final few.

“We have to remain humble,” said August Busch IV, group vice president of marketing and wholesale operations, from his home in St. Louis where he watched Super Bowl XXXVI.

“We’ve got great management that allows us to take chances and push the envelope,” Busch says. “And, hopefully, we have a proven track record as a great American beer.”

Executives at Anheuser-Busch have plenty to celebrate. The brewer posted record U.S. beer sales volume of 99.5 million barrels in 2001, a 1.2% increase from the year before. The company makes the world’s two best-selling beers: Budweiser and Bud Light.

But there were some high-profile flops, too. Even with Britney Spears in its hip pocket, Pepsi fell flat. In two spots — one of which was 90 seconds long — Spears crooned old Pepsi tunes. The 90-second ad, which cost Pepsi about $5.8 million to air — was the third-lowest-rated Pepsi spot among the 52 ever rated by Ad Meter. And a 30-second Spears ad that followed later was the lowest-ranked Pepsi ad in 14 years of measurement.

“There’s a distinction between winning Ad Meter and how you’re going to position your brand,” says Larry Jabbonsky, a Pepsi spokesman.

But one Ad Meter panelist just didn’t get the Spears ads. “It seems like Pepsi is a second thought in the ads and that the product is Britney Spears not Pepsi,” says Stephanie Furin, 34, an administrator at the National Health Institute from Gaithersburg, Md.

Perhaps the talker of the night was the Levi’s spot.

Using minimal special effects, a Hispanic guy calmly crosses a Mexico City street

http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?ptitle=Securities%20Firms%20News&b1=ad_bottom
1&br=blk&tp=ad_topright&T=wealthstory.ht&s=APFqAaROGRSpUcmFk

Securities Firms News

Menlo Park, California (Bloomberg) — E*Trade Group Inc. will introduce a new name for itself Sunday in two advertisements during the Super Bowl football game, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The new name is E*Trade Financial, the paper said. The new name will continue to be advertised Monday with full-page advertisements in newspapers across the country.

E*Trade hopes the change will help the company break free of its image as a Internet trading operation and better reflect its growing product offering, which includes E*Trade Bank. An E*Trade official declined to comment, the paper said.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/020201/nyf022_1.html

Friday February 1, 8:02 am Eastern Time

Press Release SOURCE: BBDO New York and Charles Schwab & Co., Inc.

Barry Bonds and Hank Aaron Star in New Television Advertising For Schwab

Commercial to Debut on ‘Super Bowl Sunday’

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 1 /PRNewswire/ — Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. will debut new television advertising on “Super Bowl Sunday.” The new commercial pairs Barry Bonds, the holder of the single season home run record, with Hall-of-Famer Hank Aaron, the all-time home run king, in a spot which will help highlight Schwab’s advice capabilities, particularly in the area of retirement investing. It was created by BBDO New York and will premier during the Charles Schwab Kickoff Show — the sole commercial airing between the coin toss and the start of Super Bowl XXXVI. It will then be rebroadcast during the fourth quarter of the game.

The new ad opens in an empty stadium, under a moonlit sky, with Barry Bonds practicing his home run swing, cracking balls into the outfield stands. Suddenly, an unidentified voice whispers to Bonds: “Barry Bonds, it’s time. It’s time to walk into retirement.” Bonds dismisses the voice and resumes his practice, only to be interrupted again: “Why hang around just to break the all-time home run record?”

Once again, Bonds resumes his swings. However, this time, the voice has become so distracting, he is only able to hit a weak foul ball. Bonds steps out of the batter’s box and looks upward to the sky, shouting, “Hank, will you cut it out already?”

The scene cuts to reveal the unidentified voice belongs to Hank Aaron, All-Time Home Run Leader, who has been sitting in a press box, observing Bonds. Aaron looks sheepishly at the camera and responds, “Hank? Hank who?”

A super appears on screen as an announcer voice over asks, “Want retirement advice from someone you can trust?” The announcer continues as the scene switches to an independent Schwab investment center: “At Charles Schwab, you’ll get expert retirement advice that’s objective, uncomplicated and not driven by commission.”

“We’ve chosen Super Bowl Sunday to showcase why Charles Schwab offers investors a compelling alternative to full-commission brokers,” said Jack Calhoun, Executive Vice President, Advertising and Brand Management at Schwab, adding, “This spot helps demonstrate that investors can trust the expert advice from Charles Schwab because it is always objective, uncomplicated and not driven by commission.”

Calhoun further noted that Schwab opted to feature highly recognizable baseball players in advertising that would debut in the most visible football game of the season “in order to defy expectations and help our message stand out within this very competitive environment.” He added, “We’ve done this successfully in the past, through the use of non-sports personality presenters, such as Ringo Starr, and last year’s female spokesperson, Sarah Ferguson. We are confident the use of Barry Bonds and Hank Aaron will help us achieve similar results in this year’s game.”

The Charles Schwab Corporation through Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. (Member SIPC/NYSE), U.S. Trust Corporation, CyBerCorp Holdings, Inc. and its other operating subsidiaries, is one of the nation’s largest financial services firms, serving 7.8 million active accounts with $846 billion in client assets through 429 domestic offices, 5 regional client telephone service centers andautomated telephonic and online channels. About 25% of Schwab’s client assets and 10% of its client accounts are managed by the 6,000 third-party, fee-based investment advisors served through Schwab Institutional.

The Charles Schwab, U.S. Trust and CyberTrader Web sites can be reached at http://www.schwab.com, http://www.ustrust.com, and http://www.cybertrader.com, respectively.

BBDO New York is the flagship office of BBDO Worldwide, the third largest global agency network. In 2001, BBDO New York was named “Agency of the Year” by Ad Age Creativity. In addition, BBDO Worldwide was named “Global Agency of the Year” by Ad Age, Ad Age Global and Adweek magazine, the leading industry publications, marking the first time that a single agency had swept the top honors at all four of these major magazines.

In addition to Charles Schwab and Co., BBDO New York’s clients include: Bayer, Campbell’s, Cingular Wireless, Duracell, FedEx, Frito-Lay, GE, Gillette, Guinness, HBO, KFC, M&M/Mars, New York Stock Exchange, Office Depot, PeopleSoft, Pepsi-Cola, Pizza Hut, Unilever and Visa, among others.

SOURCE: BBDO New York and Charles Schwab & Co., Inc.

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http://www.uwire.com/content//topae020102002.html

By Melanie M. Schroeder Northern Star (Northern Illinois U.)

(U-WIRE) DEKALB, Ill. — The battle between the Rams and the Patriots isn’t the only draw for Super Bowl fans this year, and neither is the half-time show featuring U2. Advertisers pull out the big guns during the Super Bowl, using both humor and drama in their commercials to convince viewers to purchase their products.

Memorable favorites include Pepsi’s 1995 commercial including a little boy who, trying to suck the last drop of his soda out of the bottle, gets sucked inside the bottle himself. An ad shown during 1998′s Super Bowl introduced Ali Landry in a Laundromat as she flipped backwards and caught a Dorito in her mouth.

Humorous ads featuring laughable characters, such as the Budweiser frogs, are a staple of Super Bowl advertising; however, this year’s ads will be more serious. Because of the Sept. 11 attacks, businesses are afraid to offend a recovering nation and subsequently lose millions of dollars in advertising.

Another factor that has affected this year’s commercials is the current recession, which has forced cutbacks in advertising costs. Thirty seconds of air time this year costs only $2 million dollars as compared to last year’s price of $2.5 million dollars, possibly compromising the quality of the commercials.

Monster.com, an Internet job search company, will feature commercials that won’t contain the usual laugh-out-loud humor of its predecessors. The company chose former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani to star in its ad, hoping to inspire viewers to “never settle” for less than they’re capable of.

“The decision to use the hero of Sept. 11 in a humorous ad — playing on the fact that he’s now looking for work — could prove to be one of the canniest decisions by a Super Bowl advertiser this year,” according to mediaguardian.com.

Companies like Pepsi and Budweiser advertise during the Super Bowl not only because the game historically draws the largest television audience of the year. They know the majority of audience members recognize their products and buy them on a regular basis.

According to advertising.about.com., “Companies that don’t sell products or services geared to the average football fan and aren’t a mass vehicle for customers end up wasting their advertising dollars.”

Jay Wagle, a marketing professor and director of Northern Illinois University Honors Program, offered an example of such a company.

“Masterlock spent millions for thirty seconds,” he said, “and only 10 percent of those people were in the market for a lock. That is a wasted advertisement.”

Wagle said informational ads for lesser-known products are more effective than humorous ones. Though people may laugh at a funny commercial, they are unlikely to remember the product. Introducing the product and listing the reasons to buy it enforces the information in the viewer’s memory.

Many companies spend big bucks to sell their products to the Super Bowl audience, but Wagle suggested they ask themselves one question: “The bottom line argument is: Is it worth the money?”

Any content distributed via U-WIRE is protected by copyright.

http://www.brandweek.com/brandweek/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1307665

NEW YORK — After about a week of teaser ads, AT&T Wireless will unveil the mystery of “mlife” in a 60-second Super Bowl XXXVI commercial on Sunday.

The spot shows various belly buttons concluding with a birth scene. The metaphor: AT&T Wireless lets you live an untethered life.

The 60-second commercial will follow four teaser spots during the game. Since the campaign broke last week, AT&T Wireless has run TV spots showing various man-on-the-street types talking about an “mlife.”

AT&T Wireless, a unit of AT&T, did not disclose spend for the new campaign. Ogilvy & Mather, New York, won the estimated $400 million account in June.

Initial ads promote the wireless lifestyle while later efforts will be more specific about the carrier’s services. John Zeglis, chairman/CEO of AT&T Wireless, said he’s not concerned if the ads promote general wireless usage. “It’s OK if it lifts the whole industry,” he said.

Shelly Lazarus, chairman/CEO of Ogilvy, said so far the wireless category is “without a leader,” and AT&T Wireless has a good shot at taking the mantle.

After the Super Bowl, the unit will break a spot at the Olympics showing two competing speed skaters taunting each other by sending a text message of their best times.

–Todd Wasserman

http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/020201/n01290389_1.html

NEW YORK (Reuters) – AT&T Wireless Services Inc. (NYSE:AWE – news), the nation’s third-largest wireless operator, on Friday said it will launch a new branding campaign during the Super Bowl on Sunday that stresses the service’s ability to keep people connected.

AT&T Wireless declined to disclose the cost of the campaign, which was developed by the Ogilvy and Mather Worldwide unit of WPP Group Plc. (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: WPP.L)

The Redmond, Washington-based company said it planned to unveil a 60-second ad during the broadcast of the National Football League championship game based on the theme “mLife,” a reference to mobile, as well as such other meanings as “multifaceted,” “managed” and “modern.” It also planned to refocus service offers, renovate retail stores and redesign its Web site to fit the theme.

“With this new brand campaign, we are making a bold break from our industry’s obsession with plans, prices, promotions, and patter about esoteric technology issues,” said John Zeglis, chairman and chief executive of AT&T Wireless.

“Instead, we are reaffirming the real power of wireless communication … Our point is that AT&T Wireless helps people live their lives in ways that are rewarding, relevant and fun,” he said in a news release.

The company said the television ad to run on Sunday follows a series of unbranded television, newspaper and outdoor ads during the last two weeks.

Spots during Super Bowl commercial breaks are often used by companies to showcase their latest and best ads. The television broadcast of the Super Bowl annually garners one of the largest viewing audiences in the United States.

AT&T Wireless said the ad campaign will further unfold in the coming weeks and months, beefed up by print, radio and outdoor ads. It will also use ads customized for the Hispanic market, one of four untapped markets that AT&T Wireless is targeting.

The ads will depict people from many walks of life and show how they want to “stay connected and be free” at the same time.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/020201/nyf022_1.html

Commercial to Debut on ‘Super Bowl Sunday’

SAN FRANCISCO /PRNewswire/ — Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. will debut new television advertising on “Super Bowl Sunday.” The new commercial pairs Barry Bonds, the holder of the single season home run record, with Hall-of-Famer Hank Aaron, the all-time home run king, in a spot which will help highlight Schwab’s advice capabilities, particularly in the area of retirement investing. It was created by BBDO New York and will premier during the Charles Schwab Kickoff Show — the sole commercial airing between the coin toss and the start of Super Bowl XXXVI. It will then be rebroadcast during the fourth quarter of the game.

The new ad opens in an empty stadium, under a moonlit sky, with Barry Bonds practicing his home run swing, cracking balls into the outfield stands. Suddenly, an unidentified voice whispers to Bonds: “Barry Bonds, it’s time. It’s time to walk into retirement.” Bonds dismisses the voice and resumes his practice, only to be interrupted again: “Why hang around just to break the all-time home run record?”

Once again, Bonds resumes his swings. However, this time, the voice has become so distracting, he is only able to hit a weak foul ball. Bonds steps out of the batter’s box and looks upward to the sky, shouting, “Hank, will you cut it out already?”

The scene cuts to reveal the unidentified voice belongs to Hank Aaron, All-Time Home Run Leader, who has been sitting in a press box, observing Bonds. Aaron looks sheepishly at the camera and responds, “Hank? Hank who?”

A super appears on screen as an announcer voice over asks, “Want retirement advice from someone you can trust?” The announcer continues as the scene switches to an independent Schwab investment center: “At Charles Schwab, you’ll get expert retirement advice that’s objective, uncomplicated and not driven by commission.”

“We’ve chosen Super Bowl Sunday to showcase why Charles Schwab offers investors a compelling alternative to full-commission brokers,” said Jack Calhoun, Executive Vice President, Advertising and Brand Management at Schwab, adding, “This spot helps demonstrate that investors can trust the expert advice from Charles Schwab because it is always objective, uncomplicated and not driven by commission.”

Calhoun further noted that Schwab opted to feature highly recognizable baseball players in advertising that would debut in the most visible football game of the season “in order to defy expectations and help our message stand out within this very competitive environment.” He added, “We’ve done this successfully in the past, through the use of non-sports personality presenters, such as Ringo Starr, and last year’s female spokesperson, Sarah Ferguson. We are confident the use of Barry Bonds and Hank Aaron will help us achieve similar results in this year’s game.”

The Charles Schwab Corporation through Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. (Member SIPC/NYSE), U.S. Trust Corporation, CyBerCorp Holdings, Inc. and its other operating subsidiaries, is one of the nation’s largest financial services firms, serving 7.8 million active accounts with $846 billion in client assets through 429 domestic offices, 5 regional client telephone service centers andautomated telephonic and online channels. About 25% of Schwab’s client assets and 10% of its client accounts are managed by the 6,000 third-party, fee-based investment advisors served through Schwab Institutional.

The Charles Schwab, U.S. Trust and CyberTrader Web sites can be reached at http://www.schwab.com, http://www.ustrust.com, and http://www.cybertrader.com, respectively.

BBDO New York is the flagship office of BBDO Worldwide, the third largest global agency network. In 2001, BBDO New York was named “Agency of the Year” by Ad Age Creativity. In addition, BBDO Worldwide was named “Global Agency of the Year” by Ad Age, Ad Age Global and Adweek magazine, the leading industry publications, marking the first time that a single agency had swept the top honors at all four of these major magazines.

In addition to Charles Schwab and Co., BBDO New York’s clients include: Bayer, Campbell’s, Cingular Wireless, Duracell, FedEx, Frito-Lay, GE, Gillette, Guinness, HBO, KFC, M&M/Mars, New York Stock Exchange, Office Depot, PeopleSoft, Pepsi-Cola, Pizza Hut, Unilever and Visa, among others.

SOURCE: BBDO New York and Charles Schwab & Co., Inc.

http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?T=life99_nfl2.ht&s=APFnmNxRzRmVkRXgg

By Rick Westhead

New York (Bloomberg) — News Corp.’s Fox network sold its final 30-second commercial spot for Sunday’s Super Bowl this afternoon, the network said.

Fox wouldn’t disclose who bought the ad, but FedEx Corp. spokesman Jess Bunn said the overnight delivery company was the buyer.

The network has been receiving between $1.9 million and $2 million for each of its 58 30-second ads, down from the $2.1 million average price that Viacom Inc.’s CBS got a year ago, said Fox spokesman Lou D’Ermilio.

CBS sold out its Super Bowl ads last year in early January, raising about $200 million.

Fox has been selling its spots in one of the worst advertising markets since World War II. Advertising budgets for many major companies have been severely cut since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which weakened an economy that was already in a slump.

The network also was competing against General Electric Co.’s NBC, which begins airing the Winter Olympics from Salt Lake City on Feb. 8.

“Under the challenges of the economy and with the Olympics being in the same quarter, what they’ve been able to do is very respectable,” D’Ermilio said.

In a November interview, Fox President of Sales Jon Nesvig said the network expected to sell more than $200 million in ads for a 9 1/2-hour period on Super Bowl Sunday. That would include about $150 million at its flagship TV network and $50 million at 22 local stations throughout the U.S.

Long-time Super Bowl advertisers such as Anheuser-Busch Cos., which is buying a game-high 10 advertising spots, account for most of the network’s sales. Other advertisers include PepsiCo Inc., Levi Strauss & Co. and Tricon Global Restaurants Inc.’s Pizza Hut unit.

Two years ago, ABC sold Super Bowl ads to about 17 Internet companies and commanded prices as high as $3 million for a 30- second spot. Fox has sold ads to only four dot-com companies for this year’s game — HotJobs.com Ltd.; E*Trade Group Inc.; Monster.com, a unit of TMP Worldwide Inc.; and Yahoo! Inc.