Superbowl-ads.com Article Archive

http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Focus-on-editing/f_focus_on_editing-03.26.04.shtml

Focus on Editing: Jay Ankeney

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.

Of course, being an art form, it is not always guaranteed that the intended “A” imprint will result. And being a commercial art form, everyone involved has to recognize that the audience views the video fireworks through the filters of their own life experience. So editors, or whoever is responsible for banging “B” and “C” together, have to be aware of the higher level of aesthetic appreciation expressed as B2 + C2 = A2, because in addition to nachos and chicken wings, every Super Bowl partygoer brings his or her own preconceptions to the game.

Fortunately, editors have three overarching communication tools that guide their aesthetic alchemy, our Holy Trinity of context, contrast and rhythm, and the ads of Super Bowl XXXVIII provided prime examples of each.

THE IBM SPOT

“Contrast” refers to the intentional difference between shots in a sequence, and nowhere was this more effectively used than in IBM’s minimalist spot touting the Linux operating system that ran right after the Carolina Panthers’ Shane Burton blocked the Patriot’s field goal with 6:08 left in the second quarter. In a visual style that emulated George Lucas’s “THX 1138″ as closely as the classic 1984 Macintosh ad borrowed from Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis,” it started with a pullback from a blank-faced kid in a featureless white room. As we hear Muhammad Ali’s voice shouting, “They’ll never make me an underdog. They’ll never stop me,” the ad cuts to an overhead wide shot and we see the child is looking at archival footage of the famed heavyweight on a black-and-white TV set perched atop an isolated table. All the visual elements of the spot have been established in the first five seconds, and its message is conveyed by the contrast of cutting between the kid (a computer geek or ghost of the future?) and the rebellious Ali yelling, “I shook up the world! I shook up the world!”

Suddenly a modern Ali is sitting in a chair opposite the child, telling him personally to “shake up the world.” The boy looks up, smiling, and we cut to a simple graphic: “Linux” that dissolves into the phrase “The Future is Open.” Without fancy graphics or digital effects, IBM’s pitch about not letting established prejudices block out maverick possibilities is conveyed through the simple contrast between shots of an old warrior and a new seeker.

SUPER MACHO

“Rhythm,” or the temporal element of editing’s pace, became the primary element in Gillette’s super macho 60-second ad during the third quarter with New England up 14-10 over Carolina. This spot’s monochrome imagery had an even greater impact since it followed a colorful trailer for the film “Hidalgo,” but if you viewed this ad silently without knowing its sponsor the stream of images would be almost baffling.

Triumphal quick cuts of men scoring in various sports are intercut with sensual close-ups of male faces and female eyes admiring them driven by a constant rhythm as unrelenting as a primordial chant. A voiceover intones, “You know the feeling. You’re unstoppable. Unbeatable.”–while the Cut! Cut! Cut! editing pendulum marches on. About 20 seconds into the ad we start to see shots of Gillette shavers quickly followed by passionate kisses accelerating into touching and fondling as a men’s choir proclaims, “The feeling that you get when you’re at your very best.” The incessant beat propels us toward the climactic line, “I never want to lose that feeling. It’s the best, man!” as the logo “Gillette: The Best a Man Can Get” burns across the screen.

The amorphous content of the images becomes almost irrelevant to the reassuring propulsion of that indefatigable rhythm. Like an urban drumbeat, rhythm becomes the central impetus thrusting the message forward, telling all men that they can be winners if they shave with the proper razor. As much as I admired the totality of the ad’s production, I found myself scratching my beard in wonder at its confluence of images.

“Context” has been saved for last since it involves the whole mystique of the Super Bowl. One of the ads that most effectively played off the audience’s expectations of commercial cacophony aired with 6:53 left in the fourth quarter and the Cats up by a point. We see a fairly conventional shot of a Cadillac SRX VG careening along mountain roads, but there is no sound. Even a tight close-up of the driver mouthing “Wow” was M.O.S (an old film term for a take without mikes, or “mit out sound”). The Caddy Daddies had caught us unawares by double-crossing our expectations of boisterous Super Bowl ads, and just to show it wasn’t a fluke, they repeated the silent treatment 14 minutes later by rerunning the same spot with 2:51 left in the game–a clever and effective ploy.

But the strongest invocation of editorial context came toward the end of the first half when Budweiser opened a commercial with a beautiful winter forest scene. We crane down on a horse-drawn sleigh nestled in the snow as the woman says, “This is so romantic.” Her beau replies, “Well, it’s about to get a little bit more romantic.” and hands her a candle to hold. While he digs some Bud Lights out of a cooler we are presented with a sequence of some of the most unforgettable shots in the context of family entertainment: 1) The horse’s tail arches up; 2) the woman’s eyes widen in horror; 3) from the side we see a “mighty wind” accompanied by familiar SFX blow the woman backward; 5) the candle’s flame is caught in the blast; 4) cutaway to the horse looking over its shoulder. 5) the man joins his now charred and windswept date asking, “Do you smell barbecue?”

Just as a topper, some passersby chime in, “Cool. A rocket sled.” 

Yes, the context of the calm pastoral winter scene juxtaposed against fast-cut editing to stun the estimated 90 million Sunday evening viewers sure was effective. In fact, if Janet Jackson had not had her “wardrobe malfunction,” Bud Light’s irreverent bon mot along with other ads filled with horny chimps, crotch-biting dogs and that bikini wax gag probably would have prompted an even greater discussion of Super Bowl aesthetics. That is B2 + C2 = A2 implemented to the max, and in some people’s minds we now know what kind of a “bowl” to which they are referring.

By Bill Berkrot

NEW YORK (Reuters) – 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.

Cialis is sold by Eli Lilly & Co. and Icos Corp. , while Levitra is co-marketed by GlaxoSmithKline and Bayer AG

ImpactRx, which measures the effectiveness of promotions for drug companies, collected information from about 1,700 high-volume prescribing physicians on patient requests and new prescriptions written.

In the week following the Super Bowl, 34 percent of new patients requested Cialis compared with 21 percent for Levitra. Viagra, with its near universal name recognition, garnered 45 percent without any Super Bowl advertising.

In the week before the Super Bowl ads ran, Levitra had 25 percent, Cialis 23 percent and Viagra 52.

When a group of 100 urologists was broken out from the larger sampling of primary care physicians the results favored Cialis even more dramatically — 50 percent to 29 percent for Levitra and 18 percent for Viagra.

Total requests for the drugs were up more than 40 percent from the previous week, ImpactRx said. That’s good news for all three in a market with huge room for expansion as an estimated 85 percent of ED sufferers have yet to seek any treatment.

The Levitra ad featured former football coach and hall of fame player Mike Ditka poking fun at baseball for being a less macho sport — an insider’s reference to the summer game often sponsored by Viagra.

It was the type of direct-to-consumer ad that does not mention what the drug treats, instead telling viewers to ask their doctors.

Glaxo representatives said they did not feel it appropriate to discuss erectile dysfunction before a massive family audience — a sensitivity clearly not shared by the MTV-produced bump and grind half-time show that culminated with Jackson’s much-discussed exposed right breast.

The Cialis folks decided not to shy away from the delicate subject, seizing on the opportunity to reach an enormous audience to drive home what sets their drug apart from its rivals — effectiveness for up to 36 hours. The other two work for about four to five hours.

Various scenes of couples in tender moments were accompanied by a voice over that provided the selling points as well as the obligatory side effect profile that likely provided some uncomfortable moments in the family room.

“I do think that the Cialis ad was probably more effective because the 36 hours kept appearing,” said Barbara Lippert, critic for Adweek magazine. “Although having to say aloud in case of a four-hour erection you should seek medical attention was the capper for tastelessness, given that children were watching.”

She said the Levitra ad might even backfire.

“What about all the men who would need Levitra who like baseball?” Lippert asked. “Are they alienating something like 40 percent of their audience?”

Copyright 2004, Reuters News Service

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20040211-1546-indecentprogramming.html

By Jonathan D. Salant

ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON – 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.

“You knew what you were doing,” said Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., her voice cracking. “You wanted us to be all abuzz. It lines your pockets.”

Karmazin insisted that CBS and MTV did not know about plans to rip off Jackson’s top, nor the crotch-grabbing dance steps that were also included in the halftime show. He said none of those actions took place during rehearsals.

“Everyone at Viacom and everyone at CBS and everyone at MTV was shocked and appalled and embarrassed at what had happened,” Karmazin said.

To prevent a repeat, he said CBS will air live programming on a five-minute delay, which was done for the Grammy awards this week. He said the network-owned stations would also buy equipment so that locally televised live programs would also be time-delayed. And he said the network was reviewing its standards for commercials in response to criticism over a movie trailer for a horror film and Super Bowl ads showing a flatulent horse and a crotch-biting dog.

The halftime show, produced by CBS’ corporate cousin MTV, drew more than 200,000 complaints to the Federal Communications Commission.

National Football League Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, also testifying before the House panel, said he expressed concerns about the halftime show in December and even considered dismissing MTV as producer. But he decided to move forward following a meeting with CBS President Les Moonves, and because of MTV’s track record in producing the 2001 halftime show.

“Clearly, there was a wide gap over what was appropriate,” Tagliabue said. “We should have recognized it earlier. We gave the keys to the car to someone else to drive without assuring they knew how to drive the car safely, and they crashed.”

All five FCC commissioners appeared before the two panels and urged Congress to give them a more powerful tool to use against broadcasters.

Legislation in both houses would increase the maximum fine for indecency from $27,500 to $275,000. The FCC already has said it will begin fining broadcasters for each incident rather than each program.

“Cost-of-doing-business fines will never stop Big Media’s slide to the bottom,” Commissioner Michael Copps said. “All of the fines we have imposed against Viacom could be paid for by adding one commercial to the Super Bowl, and the company would probably end up with a profit.”

Viacom is no stranger to the fight over indecency. Its Infinity Broadcasting subsidiary paid $1.7 million in 1995 to settle several cases against disc jockey Howard Stern, and the FCC last year proposed fining the company $357,000 for a radio segment on the “Opie and Anthony Show” in which a couple was said to be having sex in New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Viacom is contesting the fine for its broadcast of the Opie and Anthony show. Karmazin said the show was tasteless and gross, but not indecent.

He called on the FCC to issue rules defining what is an indecent program.

“What’s happened is the standard has changed,” Karmazin said. “It is not exactly clear what is meant by indecency.

FCC Chairman Michael Powell said the commission has been able to enforce indecency standards for decades, and doesn’t need to go through a time-consuming process to write a rule.

“It’s a red herring,” Powell said. “There is no ambiguity with the indecency standard. It’s existed for 30 years.”

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040210/latu052_1.html

The Pay-Per-View Halftime Sports Extravaganza Far Exceeds Expectations

LOS ANGELES/PRNewswire/ — 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.”

Due to the international attention Lingerie Bowl has received over the past six months and the achievement on Super Bowl Sunday, Mortaza also announced today the forming of the Lingerie Football League (LFL), with league play to begin in 2005. The LFL will consist of four teams including the Los Angeles Dream, New York Euphoria, Dallas Desire and Chicago Passion.

Each team will consist of thirteen models lead by a celebrity quarterback and captain. The teams will square off in a single elimination playoff game in January 2005. The Los Angeles Dream will take on Dallas Desire while New York Euphoria battles it out against Chicago Passion. The two winning teams will advance to Lingerie Bowl 2005 and play in the second annual pay-per-view halftime event.

Horizon Productions, founded in 2003, is a full-service, Hollywood-based entertainment company engaged in the development of alternative film and television, as well as talent packaging, event production and media/sponsorship management. “With the global entertainment marketplace growing more diverse every day, the challenge of keeping up with ever-changing demand requires, simply, to know what the people want and to give it to them. That’s the mission of Horizon Productions,” explains Mortaza.

http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=39755

Crashing Car Story Line Spans Two Mediums; Pulls High Online Traffic

By Jean Halliday

DETROIT (AdAge.com) — 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.

The TV component was a 30-second spot that aired midway through the Feb. 1 game’s second quarter. Announcing itself as an “Accident Avoidance Test,” the commercial features a Mitsubishi Galant GTS and a Toyota Camry XLE racing down a turnpike at high speeds. In front of them, from the open doors of two tractor trailers moving at equally high speeds, technicians unloose equal kinds of junk at both cars: bowling balls, Weber barbecue grills, full trash cans and, finally, two junk cars that hit the highway and upend as both test vehicles carom directly toward them.

The TV spot ends right there with a teaser directing interested viewers to go to “SeeWhatHappens.com.”

High traffic

And during the next 28 hours more than 170,000 unique visitors flocked to the special Web site to follow the final half of the demolition derby-like saga. From Feb. 3-5, the site continued to log an average of about 40,000 unique visitors a day.

A video on SeeWhatHappens.com shows the Galant and Camry swerving wildly as their drivers frantically try to avoid the upending hulks as well as large chunks of debris spewing on impact.

In the end, the Toyota pulls to the side of the road while the Galant continues to zigzag through the 60-mile-an-hour flying debris field.

A tagline tells Web viewers, “It’s not a commercial. It’s the ultimate performance test.” Web viewers were also offered a large button to click to “Explore the Gallant,” taking them into dense sections of vivid graphics illustrating the car’s features.

Multiple ad views

The number of unique visitors to this special site in the first 24 hours after the spot aired equaled a month’s worth of unique visitors to the auto marketer’s mitsubishicars.com site. Even more dramatic was that two-thirds of the visitors viewed the online 50-second video commercial two or more times, said Ian Beavis, senior vice president of marketing at Mitsubishi.

He said Mitsubishi couldn’t afford to run a 50-second spot during the Super Bowl, but “here I got people seeing that spot twice because they wanted to.”

Citing competitive considerations, he declined to give traffic specifics, but ComScore Media Metrix said SeeWhatHappens.com received 170,000 unique visitors throughout the day after the Super Bowl.

Mr. Beavis said the number of Web visitors who requested brochures, checked the dealer locator or read the brand’s new-vehicle warranty in one day equaled the normal monthly figures for the same consumer engagement activities on mitsubishicars.com.

Plans more cliffhanger ads Mr. Beavis said the company’s TV/Web tactic was considered so successful that Mitsubishi plans to continue the “cliffhanger idea” for other commercials as part of a new marketing strategy.

Mr. Beavis said SeeWhatHappens.com also got a spike in traffic after the cliffhanger aired during the TV broadcast last week of the film Gladiator on ABC. Deutsch created a Galant print ad that ran in USA Today the day after the Super Bowl, reminding consumers to check out the Web site.

The power of TV ads to drive consumers to rich Web extensions of the same message was also evident by the whopping jump in traffic experienced on Cialis.com, the site for the Bayer/GlaxoSmithKline erectile-dysfunction drug. According to ComScore, Cialis.com logged a 1,868% increase in Web traffic right after the game — the biggest of any Super Bowl advertiser. That’s despite the wide critical panning by industry pundits of the marketer’s debut TV ad.

Other marketers’ Web traffic

ComScore Media Metrix compared Web traffic on Super Bowl Sunday to the average of the four prior Sundays to account for the percentage change. After Cialis, the next-highest jump was itunes.com at 593%, which benefited from the PepsiCo spot promoting free Internet music downloads. Next was H&R Block, with a 258% rise. Rounding out the top 10 were pepsiworld.com (a 190% jump); dodge.com (139%); cadillac.com (94%); thetruth.com (72%); ford.com (19%); warnerbros.com (8%); and sonypictures.com (6%). Cialis’ rival on the Super Bowl, Eli Lilly and Icos Corp.’s Levitra, didn’t make the top 10.

Even historical Super Bowl ads brought people to the Web on Jan. 31, when more than 200,000 viewers watching the live TV special Super Bowl’s Greatest Commercials on CBS went online to vote for their favorite spots at either cbs.com or aol.com.

~ ~ ~ Rich Thomaselli contributed to this report.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040205/55768_1.html

(BUSINESS WIRE)–

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).

You can reach the story directly by going to http://www.newstream.com/cgi-bin/display_story.cgi?12207

This multimedia news story is for free and unrestricted use on your news information site (and for print or broadcast too). Visit http://www.newstream.com to download video, audio, text, graphics and photos.

If you have any questions about the story, or about Newstream.com, please write to us at info@newstream.com

Contact:

Newstream, New York info@newstream.com

Source: Newstream and Monster

IFILM Taps Digital Delivery Network to Stream Sunday’s Most Popular Ads to Millions

TEMPE, Ariz., /PRNewswire/ — The 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.

“Over the past few years, Super Bowl ads have found a niche in America’s popular culture and it has been really exciting for Limelight Networks to play a small role in this phenomenon,” said David Rice, vice president of sales and marketing at Limelight Networks. “We have been amazed at the number of hits our network has been receiving this week. The popularity of this annual IFILM event demands a highly scaleable network to handle the surge in viewers and our distributed delivery platform enabled IFILM to handle this load with ease and keep the ads playing.”

“We are delighted with this year’s event. We served nearly 15 million streams in 72 hours — over five times last year’s traffic,” said Blair Harrison, executive vice president for IFILM. “Limelight Networks handled the traffic without a hitch. Millions of users watching almost a million streams per hour at peak was something we could only have dreamt of a couple of years ago.”

In addition to IFILM, Limelight Networks provides digital content delivery for many of the world’s leading music, entertainment, and Internet companies, including: BuyMusic.com, Musicmatch, Real Networks, RadioFree Virgin, Jimmy Buffett’s Radio Margaritaville, Wind-up Records, Valve Software and QuePasa.com, as well as leading broadcast networks.

About IFILM

IFILM is a media company comprising the IFILM Network ( http://www.ifilm.com ), and the Hollywood Creative Directory with Lone Eagle Publishing. The IFILM Network is a leading video entertainment destination on the Web, offering channels of movies, short films, TV clips, video game trailers, music videos, and its celebrated “Viral Videos” collection. Through its distribution partners including Real Networks, Movies.com, WindowsMedia.com and Rotten Tomatoes, the IFILM Network reaches over twenty million buzz-building visitors per month and offers unique brand-building programs for blue-chip advertising partners. IFILM also publishes the renowned Hollywood Creative Directory, the entertainment industry’s standard for contact directories ( http://www.hcdonline.com ) and operates Lone Eagle Publishing, publisher of industry trade books. IFILM is a privately held company based in Hollywood, California with investors that include Axiom Ventures, Inc., Eastman Kodak Company, Liberty Digital, Rainbow Media, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Vulcan Ventures, Inc.

About Limelight Networks

Limelight Networks is the first comprehensive digital delivery network, providing online businesses with media routing and distribution solutions that include live and on-demand streaming media, content delivery, storage and hosting as well as Tier-1+ bandwidth services. Leveraging an efficient network architecture with strategic distribution locations around the globe combined with powerful download management and reporting tools, Limelight Networks enables some of the industry’s top content providers, webcasters and enterprise customers to reduce the cost and complexity of delivery, while ensuring unmatched performance. Limelight Networks’ innovative delivery platform has been proven to dramatically cut the costs associated with e-commerce, distance learning, online entertainment and corporate connectivity. For more information, visit www.limelightnetworks.com .

———————————————————————— Source: Limelight Networks

http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=39731

CBS/AOL Streaming Commercials Viewed 4.6 Million Times in TV/Internet Tie-in

QwikFIND ID: AAP35H

By Rich Thomaselli

DETROIT (AdAge.com) — 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.

“You can thank [News Corp.'s] Fox for that,” coordinating producer Bob Horowitz told AdAge.com. “Along came American Idol and it got us thinking how we could take a page from that. We decided to let the commercials run and let America be the judge.”

The special was popular with viewers, scoring a 6.9 rating and an 11 share in the Nielsen ratings, to win its 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. time slot by beating a movie on ABC, Law & Order on NBC and America’s Most Wanted on Fox.

Steelers star

“Mean Joe Greene,” in which the Pittsburgh Steelers football star famously tosses his jersey to a young fan, was voted the best Super Bowl commercial of all time. The other finalists were a 1993 McDonald’s Corp. ad featuring Michael Jordan and Larry Bird and last year’s Budweiser commercial showing the Clydesdale horses waiting for a zebra to review a football play.

The Coca-Cola spot with Mr. Greene is now 25 years old. Made in 1979 by McCann-Erickson, New York, the commercial aired on the 1980 Super Bowl. It shows a limping Mr. Greene walking down the tunnel of a stadium. A young boy follows and offers the hulking football player, known for being mean-spirited, his Coca-Cola. The player at first declines, but later relents. After downing the Coke in one gulp — Mr. Greene reportedly downed 15 to 20 such bottles during the shoot — he says, “Hey kid. Catch,” and throws the boy his game-worn No. 75 jersey.

The McDonald’s spot, known as “Nothing but Net,” finished third in the voting and was from Leo Burnett USA, Chicago. Mr. Jordan and Mr. Bird are shown in a spirited game of matching each other basket-for-basket for the rights to a Big Mac. As the game progresses, the degree of difficulty becomes humorous. At one point, the two players are the top of an arena and Mr. Bird says, “Over the rafter, off the scoreboard, nothing but net.”

Clydesdales

Last year’s Bud spot was from Hill Holliday Connors Cosmopulous, Boston. Previous spots had shown the famous Clydesdales playing football. This time, the horses are standing around as a zebra looks into a camera that shows instant replay. Two fans are sitting in the stands and one says, “This zebra is a real jackass,” a playful riff on how long it often takes National Football League referees — sometimes known as “zebras” — to look at instant replays.

http://www.oudaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/02/03/401f12f7677a5

Despite high costs, this year’s ads fail to make students laugh.

Leah Barksdale – Daily Staff Writer

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.

‘Buying a commercial during the Super Bowl is not a sufficient reach,’ Avery said. ‘Advertisers can reach just as many people by buying one during the nightly news throughout the week.’

With every Super Bowl, people wonder what the new commercials will be like: Will they be better than last year? Which celebrities will endorse each of the products?

Even though some commercials featured original ideas like football players singing about ‘Tomorrow’ or senior citizens getting ugly over a bag of potato chips, many agree this year’s commercials lacked something.

‘This year’s commercials were definitely subpar,’ said Steven Thomas, elementary education junior. ‘But you know there’s only so many funny ideas you can have in 30 seconds.’

Despite some downfalls, many students agreed the commercial featuring women playing snow volleyball was a great idea.

‘I really liked the volleyball-in-the-snow one,’ said Amanda La Fon, music education sophomore. ‘I can’t wait for summer sports. A lot [of the commercials] I’ve seen before, and they aren’t as funny as in the past.’

The most popular ads included a donkey’s dream to become a Budweiser Clydesdale and a dog that liked to fetch a little more than just a beer for his owner, according to a survey on Ifilm.com.

Just because the game is over and the stadium is cleared doesn’t mean you can’t watch the commercials. Ifilm.com features a menu where you can watch all your favorites and the commercials you love to hate.

http://www.nj.com/business/ledger/index.ssf?/base/business-5/1075791298172180.xml

BY ELLEN SIMON

Star-Ledger Staff

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.

“One spot in the Super Bowl can build a brand overnight,” said Mark Stewart, chief strategy officer for Universal McCann, which did the MasterCard Homer Simpson spot.

The question is, did the flashing during this year’s halftime show detract from the selling? Did it make a difference at all?

It did to Michael Powell, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Calling the partial exposure of Jackson’s breast “deplorable,” Powell promised a “thorough and swift” investigation into the incident.

“I am outraged at what I saw during the halftime show,” Powell said. “Like millions of Americans, my family and I gathered around the television for a celebration. Instead, that celebration was tainted by a classless, crass and deplorable stunt.”

 The show was produced by MTV Networks, like CBS a unit of media conglomerate Viacom. At the end of the song “Rock your Body,” singer Justin Timberlake, of boy band N’Sync fame, tugged a piece of fabric off Jackson’s chest, and her breast — partially obscured by a nipple “pastie” — popped out.

“The half-time show is seen as a self-contained spectacle unto itself,” Stewart said. “What advertisers are concerned with is the number of people who watched the game.”

The anti-smoking American Legacy Foundation ran an ad about a fictitious company that makes ice-pops with shards of glass embedded in them. The ad, which parodied the tobacco industry’s stance that their product may be dangerous, but it’s only for adults, gave viewers a Web address to visit.

The site, shardsoglass.com, got 7,700 hits per second Sunday night, said Chris Cullen, the foundation’s executive vice president of marketing and communications. The foundation’s site, americanlegacy.org, “which you have to work pretty hard to get to from shardsoglass.com,” got 229,922 hits, Cullen said.

“We are very happy,” he said. “The game delivered.”

Ellen Simon can be reached at (973) 392-1695 or esimon@starled ger.com.

http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/17090.htm

By DAN MANGAN, ADAM BUCKMAN and BILL HOFFMANN

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.

Some of the commercials were hip and clever – like Pepsi’s that focused on illegal downloading of songs from the Internet.

“It was the best idea on the Super Bowl,” said Jonathan Bond, co-chairman of advertising company Kirshenbaum, Bond + Partners, who was part of a panel enlisted by The Post to rate the commercials.

“Pepsi has been trying to be young for 40 years. This was new, rebellious and a novel way to outperform Coke,” he said.

Other ads were clunkers, our experts said, like Ford’s speeding cars and trucks dragging unlikely loads.

“They must have exhumed Henry Ford to get a sense of what were the most dated, trite, banal car advertisements I’ve ever seen,” said Richard Kirshenbaum, co-chairman of Kirshenbaum, Bond+Partners, and another member of our panel.

Another commercial put the spotlight on the late Jimi Hendrix. Did anybody know that, as a young boy, the rock legend weighed taking up the accordion instead of the guitar, but chose the latter, just as he chose Pepsi over Coke?

That weird whirling sound you heard last night was probably the sound of the “Purple Haze” wildman spinning in his grave.

One ad that generated some laughs was a Bud Light spot that featured a couple cuddling in a horse-drawn sleigh before the man stepped away to grab some beer, leaving his date to get treated to the sight and smell of a flatulent horse.

And who knew that Expedia, the online travel agency, was getting into some serious S&M? It sure looked like it as some poor schlub trying to plan a getaway has a nightmare in which he’s held down by evil circus clowns who then painted circles around his nipples.

Are there any other words to use but “sad, sad, sad” for Willie Nelson, who for the second year in a row, is making fun of the tax troubles that nearly destroyed him by shilling for tax-preparing service H&R Block?

And you’ve gotta wonder about the creative minds behind the IBM ad.

OK, there is an instant poignancy about dragging out ailing Muhammad Ali to shill. But doesn’t the company that practically invented computers have anything new to say?

Making fun of old people? Frito-Lay got away with it with an elderly guy who tripped his wife to keep her from getting to the potato chips – and then he couldn’t eat them because she had his false teeth.

Last night, the Jackson-Timberlake incident was also creating buzz.

The National Football League and CBS issued statements critical of the stunt that left Jackson with a bare breast after Timberlake tore a patch off her outfit.

The singers later apologized and blamed a “costume malfunction.”

Joe Browne, executive president of the NFL, was unimpressed and said, “It’s unlikely that MTV will produce another Super Bowl halftime.”

CBS spokeswoman Leslie Anne Wade said the network “deeply regrets the incident.”

http://www.newsroom.msu.edu/site/indexer/1845/content.htm

EAST LANSING, Mich. – 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.’

Other commercials for Anheuser-Busch featuring a monkey, fetching dogs, aspiring donkeys and a gassy horse also scored high marks from the advertising faculty. Pepsi’s Sierra Mist and Chevrolet scored well too.

‘Chevy was more creative than automotive companies have traditionally been,’ said Vanden Bergh.

Using a 10-point scale, the faculty rated each commercial based on creativity, production and overall quality. The team considered whether each commercial’s strategy was unique and relevant to the appropriate target consumers and also determined whether its execution was memorable and bolstered the reputation of the product.

Among the commercials that failed to meet the experts’ expectations were promotional spots for upcoming motion picture releases, Levitra ads featuring Mike Ditka, and AOL spots featuring the Orange County Choppers motorcycle club.

‘AOL’s ubiquitous free discs do a better job of promoting their service than those spots did,’ said MSU advertising professor Dave Regan.

Here’s how the commercials stacked up, according to MSU’s Department of Advertising faculty experts:

Top Ten Touchdowns

1. Bud Light Cedric’s bikini wax

2. Bud Light fetching dogs

3. Bud Light romantic monkey

4. Pepsi shopping bears

5. Chevrolet Aveo

6. Sierra Mist parade/kilt

7. Bud Light romantic horse

8.Chevrolet SSR/kids with soap

9. Budweiser aspiring donkey

10. MasterCard Simpsons

Fumbles, in order of worst to first:

1. AOL bikers

2. Levitra

3. All the movie spots

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040202/ap_on_bi_ge/super_bowl_ads_6

By JUSTIN BACHMAN, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK – 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.

In a telecast that featured commercials for two of the three drugs to treat impotence, Bud Light scored early with two amusing ads. Both focused on men suffering similarly difficult experiences.

One spot featured two guys at a hunting camp compare their canines’ talents. One has a dog that fetches a Bud Light from a cooler. “What can your dog do?” asks the pleased owner. “Bud Light,” commands the man wanting a beer, prompting his scroungy pooch to lunge for the pants of the other guy, who squeals and flings his bottle.

In the other ad, comedian Cedric the Entertainer wanders into the wrong room at a spa while waiting for his massage, distracted on his way by a refrigerator loaded with Bud Light. The puzzled attendant gives him the treatment — a bikini wax.

“Is there a breeze in here?” Cedric asks afterward, sitting in a bathrobe.

Sierra Mist soda explored the same territory. And one can only hope the kilt-wearing bagpiper in their ad is wearing a certain piece of football gear as he gets relief from the heat by exposing himself to blasts of frigid air from a subway grate. A boy looking on says, “That’s just wrong, Dad.”

CBS charged $2.3 million this year for each 30-second spot, up from $2.2 million last year. The commercials command such steep prices because the broadcast commands a unique audience: nearly 100 million viewers who don’t channel surf for four-plus hours.

The American Legacy Foundation offered an elaborate anti-smoking spot featuring Shards O’ Glass Freeze Pops, a treat with broken glass frozen inside. “What if all companies sold products like tobacco,” the close-out line asks.

Pharmaceutical giants Bayer AG and GlaxoSmithKline hired former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka to tout their new anti-impotence drug, Levitra, by noting some differences between football and baseball. One is played in all sorts of weather, with a markedly different pace, Ditka notes, taking a swipe at the summer sport.

“Baseball could use Levitra,” Ditka concludes.

The newest entrant in that prescription drug category, Cialis, offers romantic scenes of couples in a commercial that asks: “If a relaxing moment turns into the right moment, will you be ready?”

Apple Computer and PepsiCo used the game to kick off their iTunes music store promotion — and to tweak the recording industry’s legal assault on Internet song-swapping by featuring 16 teens the industry sued last year over their illegal downloading.

Keeping to its musical theme this Super Bowl, Pepsi imagined the day an 11-year-old Jimi Hendrix contemplates an electric guitar in the window of a Seattle shop located near a Pepsi vending machine. Nearby, a Coke machine sits outside a store selling an accordion.

“Whew… that was a close one,” reads the ending graphic, after the soundtrack offers a taste of “Purple Haze” accordion-style.

In one of the program’s quirkier ads, an elderly couple battles over new crispier chips from Frito Lay. Tripping her, the older gentleman then shuffles past and stabs his cane in her back. But reaching the chips, he finds himself thwarted as he turns to see her holding his artificial teeth.

Rival shaving product companies Gillette and Schick-Wilkinson Sword also got into the act.

Schick informed viewers in pedestrian fashion that its new Quattro system with four blades is superior to those with only three. Gillette answered with a flashy collection of black and white images and purple prose about the joys of its own three-blade razor: “It’s like having an angel by your side.”

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040202/lam081_1.html

Budweiser’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)”

“Budweiser’s ‘Donkey Dream’ commercial won first place because it incorporated light humor that put a fun twist on one of America’s advertising icons — the Budweiser Clydesdales,” said Steve McKee, president of McKee Wallwork Henderson. “It was a Horatio Alger and Frank Capra story rolled up into a donkey’s dream.”

Since it’s an election year, ADBOWL was also able to determine which commercials were preferred by Democrats and which ones Republicans liked best.

Democrats: Budweiser “Donkey Dream”

Republicans: Bud Light “Sleigh Ride”

Independents: Budweiser “Donkey Dream”

“It’s only natural that Democrats should select a donkey as their favorite commercial” said McKee. “If democrats and Independents agree in the Fall like they did for best commercial in the ADBOWL, it could make for an interesting election year.”

Nearly 40 million women watched the big game yesterday. They also selected Budweiser’s “Donkey Dream” commercial as their favorite. The top three commercials chosen by women were:

1. Budweiser “Donkey Dream”

2. Bud Light “Dog Fetch”

3. Bud Light “Sleigh Ride”

So many women watched the game this year that they helped propel their favorite commercial to the top, whereas men preferred the Bud Light “Dog Fetch” spot, according to McKee. A survey of 500 Americans conducted by InsightExpress, a marketing research firm, stated that two out of every five people who watch the Super Bowl tune in for the commercials.

During the championship football game last night, viewers went to www.adbowl.com and rated the commercials on a scale between one and five, with 5 being a “Touchdown,” 4 “Field Goal,” 3 “First Down,” 2 “Punt” and 1 being a “Fumble.” Thousands of votes were cast for America’s favorite ads. Voters also visited www.superbowl-ads.com for more information about the commercials. The ADBOWL website infrastructure was enhanced by FatCow to accommodate increased traffic during the big game.

The ADBOWL is not a scientifically projected sampling of the entire population. It is a self-selected sample of consumers viewing the commercials during the championship football game.

About McKee Wallwork Henderson

McKee Wallwork Henderson, based in New Mexico, is one of the nation’s fastest growing advertising agencies. As a full-service agency, the company specializes in working with companies that have experienced fast growth. Whether it’s raising awareness, launching a new product, seizing market share or securing investment capital, McKee Wallwork Henderson understands and solves the unique marketing challenges growth companies face. McKee Wallwork Henderson can be found online at www.growingfast.com

About FatCow Web Hosting

Founded in 1998, FatCow Web Hosting, the Southwest’s largest hosting provider, is a privately-held New Mexico-based company providing web hosting for small to medium-sized businesses and individuals looking for affordable, service oriented web hosting. With a strong commitment to customer service and a technical infrastructure that rivals that of most large hosting companies, FatCow has grown to host over 27,000 domains for customers in 90 countries. FatCow can be found online at www.fatcow.com.

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Source: McKee Wallwork Henderson

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040202/26059_1.html

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–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.

* Budweiser and Bud Light generated 1384 on-air stories about their bevy of commercials

* Pepsi created 911 stories, many of which well in advance of the game itself

* AOL scored 885 stories thanks in large part to their sponsorship of the half-time show, online ad-poll and creative ads.

For more statistics and a complete rundown of all advertisers, please go to http://www.multivisioninc.com/special/superbowl_intro.htm or email info@multivisioninc.com.