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The Aesthetics of Super Bowl Ads

For the first time in long memory, this year’s Super Bowl XXXVIII was actually worth watching for the game itself. You know, that’s the fussing around on the field that happens between the high-priced commercials that this year averaged $2.25 million for a 30-second spot. But despite Adam Vinatieri’s 41-yard cliffhanger field goal in the final four seconds that put the Pats over the Cats 32-29, much of this year’s post-game chatter concerned aesthetics, which my American Heritage dictionary defines as “Guiding principles in matters of artistic beauty and taste.” No, I’m not yet referring to Janet Jackson’s peek-a-boob flashdance but its relevance will come into play shortly.

Let’s kick off our annual analysis of the most striking of this year’s Super Bowl ads by celebrating the editing principles behind these mixtures of entertainment and hype. This column has always defined “editing” as the creative act of combining two discrete ideas to create a third, disparate concept in the mind of the viewer. This can be expressed in the formula B + C = A, where “B” and “C” are the audiovisual elements being juxtaposed and “A” is the intended impression the audience is supposed to receive.

The new impotence treatment Cialis appears to have joined the New England Patriots and Janet Jackson’s publicists as big winners of this year’s Super Bowl.

In the week following the big game, more patients coming into physicians’ offices seeking treatment for erectile dysfunction (ED) asked for Cialis than Levitra, according to data collected by ImpactRx.

The second and third entries into the multibillion-dollar market long dominated by Pfizer Inc.’s Viagra, blitzed unsuspecting Super Bowl viewers with erectile dysfunction ads aimed at gaining a name recognition edge.

Janet Jackson’s exposed breast was talk of Capitol Hill on Wednesday, with lawmakers and regulators saying it’s the latest example of all that’s wrong with TV and should serve as the impetus for government to get tough with broadcasters.

At a pair of hearings, lawmakers excoriated Mel Karmazin, president of Viacom Inc. His company owns CBS, which broadcast the raunchy Super Bowl halftime show that included Jackson.

Members of the House Telecommunications Committee spent more than two hours grilling Karmazin, who again apologized for the show that ended with singer Justin Timberlake tearing off part of Jackson’s top and exposing her right breast to 90 million TV viewers.

Horizon Productions announced today that Lingerie Bowl 2004 far surpassed pay-per-view viewership expectations. Due to the success on Super Bowl Sunday, pay-per-view has decided to extend the replay ordering window into March, thus final Pay-Per-View viewership numbers will not be released until April. * (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040210/LATU052 )

“Our distributors are extremely pleased with the results of the inaugural Lingerie Bowl,” said Mitch Mortaza, president of Horizon Productions, Inc. and creator/executive producer of Lingerie Bowl 2004. “It has exceeded all of their expectations and the success is the catalyst for our new venture — the Lingerie Football League.”

While most post-Super Bowl attention focused on the halftime debacle and the mediocre quality of most commercials, one place the event did shine for marketers as never before was on the Web.

The most dramatic, symbiotic TV-Internet Super Bowl media strategy was that of Mitsubishi Motors North America. Created by Interpublic Group of Cos.’ Deutsch, Los Angeles, Mitsubishi’s campaign combined the front-end lure of a Super Bowl TV commercial with the back-end depth of a Web site to maximize the message’s breadth and impact.

Using speeding, crashing cars and a simple but effective cliffhanger, the marketer catapulted waves of TV-viewing consumers directly into a rich Web environment, where its product was presented as an enveloping physical experience.

Following yet another successful Super Bowl XXXVIII advertising appearance, Monster® today unveiled creative details about its “Portraits” campaign, a series of seven commercials and online advertising. Developed by Deutsch Inc. of New York, each spot features a candid appeal from a real-life job seeker in search of fulfilling work or an employer seeking a qualified candidate. “Portraits” is the next wave of Monster’s recently announced brand campaign, “Today’s the Day.” Monster is the leading global online careers property and flagship brand of Monster Worldwide Inc. (Nasdaq:MNST – News).

he only thing that receives as much, if not more, attention than the Super Bowl game are the array of 30 second commercials launched during the T.V. time outs. Thanks to Tempe-based Limelight Networks, a leading end-to-end digital delivery network, and IFILM, a leading video-entertainment destination on the Web, millions of people who either missed ads during the game or simply want to see them again can do their own online instant replay.

Limelight Networks was selected by IFILM as the exclusive streaming provider of the ever-popular Super Bowl commercials and on the Monday following Super Bowl Sunday, IFILM leveraged Limelight Networks’ platform to stream the popular commercials more than 8 million times to its customers around the world. This year’s traffic represents an increase of over 500 percent from IFILM’s post-2003 Super Bowl ad replays.

More than 200,000 TV viewers turned to their computers to cast a vote in Saturday night’s CBS/America Online Web poll to select Coca-Cola Co.’s “Mean Joe Greene” as the greatest Super Bowl commercial of all time.

The real-time balloting that occurred during a pre-game special was further evidence of the utility and power of the Internet to instantly connect TV broadcasters and their sponsors with the passions and actions of individual viewers.

Live TV

The live TV special, Super Bowl’s Greatest Commercials, counted down the top 10 ads until it reached the final three, and viewers were then asked to go to AOL.com or CBS.com to vote. The program aired on Viacom’s CBS, which also hosted Sunday’s Super Bowl XXVIII, in which the New England Patriots defeated the Carolina Panthers.

4.6 million video views

More than 200,000 viewers logged on in 30 minutes to cast their votes. Throughout the promotion, which began with print ads in USA Today, the online ads were viewed more than 4.6 million times. This was the third such Super Bowl commercial special to run in the last four years, all on CBS, but the first to utilize a live voter component.

The 2004 Super Bowl: one game and one extremely expensive advertisement.

But was it all really worth it in the end?

‘The Super Bowl is advertising’s national holiday,’ said Jim Avery, advertising professor.

According to SuperBowl-ads.com, the cost of a 30-second commercial spot averaged approximately $2.25 million.

With the Super Bowl over, one big question remains — and it has nothing to do with Janet Jackson’s breast.

ALAN SEPIN WALL ON HALF TIME HIJINKS PAGE 17 Did anyone notice the ads?

Advertisers spend $2.3 million for 30-second spots during the Super Bowl, which traditionally pulls the biggest television audience of the year. CBS estimates more than 89 million people watched the game on Sunday.

Yet, when it came to this year’s ads, viewers couldn’t help but ask, “Where’s the beef?” There was no Monday morning catch-phrase, nothing that got chortles at every water cooler. Instead, blogcritics.org, which had a previous high of 20,000 hits in one day, logged more than 200,000 hits with its close-up of Jackson’s partly exposed bod.

“A lot of advertisers should be happy if people are talking about Janet Jackson and not their commercials,” said Ron Berger, CEO of Euro RSCG New York, which represents Volvo, Intel and Evian. “In 15 years, it was the weakest group of ads I’ve ever seen.”

He singled out Budweiser’s ad with the flatulent horse as “frat humor — and bad frat humor.”

Super Bowl ads are a way to get people talking, to cement an image in the public’s mind. For years, Master Lock’s entire ad campaign was one Super Bowl ad, with a lock shot by a bullet. The Apple ad of a Soviet fashion show, with big women in identically shapeless outfits stomping down a runway, helped build the brand. And Electronic Data Systems’ ad with tough cowboys herding cats achieved cult status.

It was a Super Bowl to remember for what was seen – and what shouldn’t have been.

The telecast featured a billion dollars worth of new ads for 32 products, ranging from pickup trucks and Pepsi to computers and potato chips.

On the field, the Patriots held off the Panthers to win the title 32-29, while Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake unsuccessfully tried to steal the limelight with a steamy ending to the halftime show.

But, as always, it was the new ads that had fans talking.

A Bud Light television advertisement featuring Cedric the Entertainer getting an unexpected spa treatment topped the Michigan State University Department of Advertising’s list of the best commercials of Super Bowl XXXVIII.

While football fans watched the New England Patriots beat the Carolina Panthers in Sunday night’s National Football League game, MSU advertising faculty members huddled to watch and rate the commercials. Of the nearly 60 commercials that aired during the Super Bowl, the experts rated the Bud Light commercial as the top ad. Anheuser-Busch dominated this year’s ratings by taking the first three and five of the top10 spots.

‘Anheuser-Busch is the king of Super Bowl advertising,’ said Bruce Vanden Bergh, professor of advertising at MSU. ‘They always entertain and reinforce their brands with their target markets.’

There were dueling razor blades, funny beer pitches, a young Jimi Hendrix — and lots of references to male anatomy.

Even before the football teams came close to scoring in Sunday’s Super Bowl, some of the high-priced commercials targeting men were racking up points, even if some of the hits were a little cheap.

There was plenty of aiming for a certain area of male anatomy, and not just by the makers of drugs for erectile dysfunction.

udweiser’s “Donkey Dream” commercial was voted America’s favorite commercial during the championship football game last night, according to ADBOWL®, the real-time, interactive advertising ranking system for consumers. Developed by McKee Wallwork Henderson advertising, powered by FatCow and in association with Superbowl-ads.com.

America’s top 5 favorites were:

Budweiser “Donkey Dream”

Bud Light “Dog Fetch”

Bud Light “Sleigh Ride”

Frito-Lay “Dentures”

Chevrolet “New Chevy Pick-up (Soap)”

For the third year in a row, multivision, inc., is compiling a unique report that measures how many times Super Bowl advertisers are mentioned on television newscasts. Entitled, “Super Bowl: Monitoring the Advertising Buzz” the report consolidates, quantifies and compares all the news stories aired on national, cable and in the top 50 television markets in the US about this year’s Super Bowl advertising. Companies and PR firms find this information useful as it helps to quantify the “free publicity” each advertiser received between December 1, 2003 and February 2, 2004.

“Our ability to know what is being said on more than 1,000 stations at any given time provides us with unique view on the Super Bowl advertising,” said Brent Bamberger, vice president for multivision. “It’s the only time of the year that advertising makes the news, instead of interrupts it.”

The 2004 version of multivision’s “Super Bowl: Monitoring the Advertising Buzz” reveals many interesting details about how the media handles this major marketing event. Already, the number of stories about Super Bowl ads jumped from 1,400 in 2003 to more than 5,000 in 2004.