January 19, 2013
Watch the Top Five Super Bowl Commercials from the past fifteen years (yes, Feb. 3 marks the 16th anniversary of our coverage of your favorite Super Bowl Commercials – SuperBowl-ads.com)
January 21, 2010
For the First Time, Consumers Can Use the Shazam® App to Tag a Television Commercial and Receive Enhanced Brand Content
With consumers now inextricably linked to their mobile devices and connected 24/7, the Dockers® brand has created an innovative way to provide consumers with relevant content on their terms. Dockers® and Shazam® have developed an integrated program that allows consumers who watch the new Dockers® “Men Without Pants” TV commercial to use their mobile devices to engage at a deeper level with the brand – a world’s first. Once the ad is “shazamed,” viewers will link directly to a branded-content site. This technology is a major step forward in making TV clickable like digital media.
The new commercial debuts during the Super Bowl XLIV broadcast on February 7 on CBS, the first Dockers commercial to air on the Super Bowl since 2002. Viewers who have Shazam® downloaded on their smartphones can tag the spot and are instantly taken to a branded-content page. On this page, consumers can read about the “Wear the Pants™” campaign, learn about and purchase the “I Wear No Pants” track and more. The ad debut will also include a khaki pant giveaway promotion that can be entered immediately via consumer mobile devices with the Shazam® technology. The commercial continues through 2010 on a variety of shows and networks including NBA on TNT, FX, Comedy Central and the Discovery Channel and will also air online immediately following the Super Bowl debut. The khaki give away runs from February 7 – 15, 2010.
“The Dockers® brand is not only reinventing the khaki, but also how it engages consumers in relevant and meaningful ways,” said Jim Calhoun, Dockers® Brand President. “With the Shazam technology, we are inviting consumers to dig deeper into our brand and our products with the touch of a button.”
“Consumers are increasingly looking to connect with the brands they love on a richer, more emotional level, and our world-first partnership with Dockers® is a clear and unique
example of how that engagement can be achieved,” said Andrew Fisher, CEO of Shazam. “Innovation has always been at the heart of the Shazam proposition, and this partnership represents the first opportunity for Shazamers to experience this new brand journey in 2010.”
The specially created soundtrack for the spot, which is performed by the actors featured in the ad, was inspired by the song “I Wear no Pants” by The Poxy Boggards, a 13-man band who perform original and traditional songs. The original Poxy Boggards song is available for purchase online.
The brand’s new “Wear the Pants™” global ad campaign launched in December 2009 and is fully integrated with broadcast, print, billboard, radio, social media, events and digital marketing. The campaign celebrates the reemergence of the khaki as the go-to versatile pant in a man’s wardrobe. The tongue-in-cheek campaign encourages men to Wear the Pants™ and has stirred up a passionate discussion online about what it means to be a man and the role of gender in today’s society.
The “Wear the Pants™” campaign and television spot were created by the San Francisco office of Draft/FCB. The innovative integration of Shazam® was developed in partnership with Ignition Factory, a creative media specialty unit of Dockers® media buying agency OMD. Dockers® works with the Ignition Factory to develop breakthrough marketing concepts in media, technology and pop-culture and proactively find new ways to reach and engage consumers.
For consumers that don’t have the Shazam® application on their smartphone, it is available on AT&T by texting “pants” to 7299 (messaging and data rates may apply), or by downloading it from the AT&T App Center. The Shazam® application can also be found on BlackBerry App World, App store, Android Market, Windows Phone Marketplace and the Ovi Store by Nokia.
# # #
About the Dockers® Brand
The Dockers® brand has embodied the spirit of khaki for more than 20 years. Since their introduction in 1986, Dockers® has been perfecting khakis—and the essential goods to go with them—for men and women all over the world. No compromises in quality.
Just versatile, essential style. Day to night. Monday to Sunday. Wearing the pants has never looked so good. For information on Dockers® and its products, please call 1-800-DOCKERS or visit www.Dockers.com.
About Shazam®
Shazam® is the world’s leading mobile music discovery application – enabling consumers to experience and share music with others across mobile devices and the Internet. Since its launch as the first mobile-specific service to help users discover new music seven years ago, over 50 million people have used the service. Shazam has created a new way for users to connect to each other through their music tastes and preferences.
Headquartered in London, England, Shazam’s solutions enhance the music strategies of carriers in more than 150 countries, including AT&T, T-Mobile and Vodafone. It has deployed across multiple platforms such as iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Symbian and Java.
The Shazam Tag Chart, generated by the company’s mobile music recognition service, is constantly referenced by the music industry as a true indicator of market interest in pre-release material and a monitor of the hit potential of a track or artist.
Shazam’s successes have been recognized through numerous awards, including the Mobile Entertainment Award for Best Music Service Provider.
For more information please visit www.shazam.com
The Shazam name and symbol are trademarks of Shazam Entertainment Limited.
About OMD
OMD is the largest and most innovative media communications specialist in the world, with more than 140 offices in 80 countries. Named Most Creative Agency in the World by The Gunn Report for Media for four consecutive years, OMD also has the distinction of being named 2008 Global Media Agency of the Year by Adweek. The agency network is a unit of Omnicom Group, Inc.
via pitchengine.com
February 1, 2008
Ali Landry’s 1999 Doritos spot had just the right crunch.
The 1973 Super Bowl has become a frequent point of reference this year because Super Bowl VII, played Jan. 14 at Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, was the game in which the Miami Dolphins became the first team in modern pro football history to finish a season undefeated.
Their 14-7 win over the Washington Redskins, despite placekicker Garo Yepremian throwing the worst pass in Super Bowl History, gave them a 17-0 record – the record being challenged Sunday by the New England Patriots, who would with a victory over the Giants finish 19-0.
But the 1973 Super Bowl also marked another historic milestone: the commercial that many feel planted the seed for what Super Bowl ads have become today.
Today, with ad time tagged at $2.7 million for 30 seconds, the Super Bowl telecast has become the world’s premiere showcase for new television advertisements.
But that mystique didn’t come from nowhere. It came, at least in large part, from the 1973 Noxzema commercial in which Joe Namath, then still an NFL star, had his face lathered with shaving cream by Farrah Fawcett, then still a TV star.
Sounds simple enough. But then, simple is good in advertisements, when you have 30 seconds to establish your characters and your storyline and sell your product.
So over those ensuing XXXV years, what have been the best ads? That’s not quite as hard a call as it might sound because while many among those hundreds of ads have been good, only a handful have been great. (See some of the classics below.)
Before we get to our list, though, it’s worth explaining why a few well-remembered ads didn’t make our list.
The 1979 Mean Joe Greene spot, in which he throws a kid his jersey in return for a Coke, isn’t here only because it didn’t debut on the Super Bowl. By the time it was shown there, it was in reruns.
The multi-year series of “Bud Bowl” spots aren’t here because in the end, the idea was better than the execution.
And the 2002 Clydesdale “Tribute” spot, in which the famous team of Budweiser horses stops across from Lower Manhattan to genuflect, isn’t here because putting it on a list with spots that are built on jokes feels like trivializing it.
So here’s our list, in no particular order – and at the end, we’d love to hear yours.
1. “1984″ (Apple, 1984). It’s not only the ad biz that still talks about this ad, wherein a lone runner with a sledgehammer declared the era of the IBM computer monolith over and a new era of personal computer freedom about to begin. Perhaps ironically, Apple’s own Mac computer is still a niche product. But the rest of the message was prophetic.
2. Ali Landry, Doritos (1998). Every filmmaker should study this ad for a lesson in how to make maximum use of 30 seconds. Landry and her Doritos walk through a crowded room and radiate such heat the sprinkler system is set off. So, by the way, was Landry’s career.
3. “Monks” (Xerox, 1977). Brother Dominic, faced with a lifetime of painstaking hand transcription, slips over to a Xerox machine and gets his copies in minutes. His superior declares it a “miracle.” Note to the easily offended: This is how you made a religion joke without joking about religion.
4. The Bud Lizards. (Budweiser, 1997) The Bud Lizards grew out of the Bud Frogs, who first croaked “Bud . . . wei … ser” in 1995. Personally, I always thought the frogs were a little flat and that the storyline didn’t take off until Frankie and Louie the lizards joined the game a couple of years later.
5. “Hitchhiker” (Bud Light, 2007). Bud’s done a lot of clever spots, and others that try too hard. This one gets funnier every time – the guy who picks up a hitchhiker with an ax and a demented gleam in his eye because the guy has Bud Light. A little way down the road, he stops for another guy with a chain saw because he also has Bud Light. What clinches the ad’s greatness is that when he stops for chain saw guy, even ax guy is worried.
6. “The Showdown” (McDonald’s, 1993). This is the one where Larry Bird and Michael Jordan play a game of H-O-R-S-E, trading increasingly preposterous shots that all end with “nothing but net.” No ad, and not a lot of other stories in any medium, have captured so vividly the joy, beauty and subtext of sports. I’d personally argue this is the best ad ever.
7. “Clydesdales Play Ball” (Budweiser, 1996). The horses break into two football teams and one kicks an extra point. A guy standing at the fence watching asks the guy next to him if he’s surprised. Sure, says the second guy. “They usually go for two.”
8. “When I Grow Up” (Monster.com, 1999). A bunch of kids saying that when they grow up, they want to be, like, a mindless corporate tool. Sarcasm is risky in ads, but in this one it makes the point. It makes a lot of points.
9. “Bad Cheetah” (Mountain Dew, 2000). Guy on a bicycle runs down a cheetah that has swallowed his Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew has a whole strong series with this theme, and this one may be the best.
10. “Security Camera” (Pepsi, 1996). A lot of people remember other Pepsi spots, like the 1987 “Apartment 10G” spot where Michael J. Fox goes into battle to get a cute girl her Pepsi. But I like this one, where the Coke deliveryman tries to surreptitiously grab himself a Pepsi from the Pepsi case and a hundred cans spill out on the floor. I like it because, among other things, no other ad has ever used music better, or more reverently. The only audio here is 30 seconds of Hank Williams‘ “Your Cheatin’ Heart.”
via nydailynews.comvia nydailynews.com
February 1, 2008
If you look at the Super Bowl advertisement hype, which seems to triple each year, it almost makes the 30-second spots seem worth the 40 bajillion dollars that companies such as Anheuser-Busch and Pepsi will be paying for them in 2008.
And with so many iconic moments in the past 3 1/2 decades, it’s becoming more socially acceptable to admit you prefer the commercials to the game – especially the 52-10 blowout between the New England Patriots and New York Giants that we’re about to watch on Sunday afternoon. Have we reached the point where popular culture has become part of American history? And if so, should Super Bowl ads be taught in every classroom?
Probably not, but in case that ever does happen, here are some crib notes for your first exam: The 13 most important moments in Super Bowl ad history – plus a few lists of Super Bowl obscurities that you can use to impress your friends between commercials featuring flatulent horses and corpses dancing with household appliances.
The quarterback and the angel (1973): Farrah Fawcett lovingly spreads Noxzema shaving cream across Joe Namath’s face in the first high-profile Super Bowl ad. This being the 1970s, nobody protests the obvious sexual innuendos.
Before “Mythbusters,” we watched Master Lock commercials (1974): Someone shoots a bullet into a Master Lock … and the lock still holds! It sounds lame now, but in the mid-1970s this was the only good thing on TV other than “The Rockford Files.”
“Mean” Joe Greene drinks Coke … and the world cries (1980): After a tough game, the limping Pittsburgh Steelers defensive lineman tosses his jersey to a kid who gives him a Coke – the only Super Bowl commercial to inspire a feature-length TV movie, “The Steeler and the Pittsburgh Kid.” Seriously. We didn’t make that up.
Apple gets serious (1984): After years of Super Bowl commercials that looked as if they were filmed in a storage locker, Apple hires Ridley Scott for this big-budget play off George Orwell’s “1984,” which upped the ante for Super Bowl ads.
Apple gets a little too serious (1985): The Apple people follow one of the best ads of all time with one of the worst. “Lemmings” features creepy music and the disturbing image of hundreds of people jumping off a cliff.
Find Herb the Nerd (1986): Burger King implores the world to “Find Herb the Nerd” for cash. No one cares. Marketing professors are still talking to their students about how stupid this idea was.
Recyclables play football (1989): Anheuser-Busch unveils the first of eight Bud Bowls, where anthropomorphic bottles and cans compete in their own mini football game. Smart bettors took Bud Light and the spread.
“Over the second rafter, off the floor, nothing but net …” (1993): Larry Bird and Michael Jordan play an increasingly difficult game of Horse for a Big Mac. Each athlete had enough money to buy 10 million Big Macs, but it’s still a great ad.
Frogs and iguanas and weasels – oh my! (1995): The Budweiser frogs (“Bud … Weis … Errrr”) make their first of many Super Bowl appearances, later joined by two iguanas who sound a lot like Billy Crystal and Brad Garrett.
Fred Astaire is alive! (1997): For idiotic reasons that we’ll never know, the grave robbers at Red Devil use special effects to bring Fred Astaire back to life so he can dance with their vacuums.
Spending like there’s no tomorrow (2000): Seventeen dot-coms advertise during this Super Bowl, with entertaining results – including cat-herding cowboys and the ETrade monkey. “We just wasted 2 million bucks” ad.
A nation reflects … and the commercials suffer (2002): The Sept. 11 attacks ensure that almost all of the 2002 ads will be boring. Having the Budweiser Clydesdales kneel in front of the fallen twin towers was a nice idea, though.
Flatulent horses and wardrobe malfunctions (2004): The sleaziest Super Bowl ads arrive, coincidentally, in the exact same year that Janet Jackson exposes herself on national TV. (Mike Ditka’s erectile dysfunction ad, where he throws a ball through a tire, was much dirtier, though.)
To view past Super Bowl commercials, go to www.superbowl-ads.com, www.adland.com or www.spike.com/superbowl.
On Sunday: Go to the Culture Blog during the game to post your comments on the Super Bowl commercials.
via sfgate.com
January 22, 2008
The best years for spots are ones where economy, country is thriving
Strong economic times can result in a bounty of good Super Bowl ads. Janet Jackson’s exposed breast is a Super Bowl commercial killer. And venture capitalist money equals offbeat and funny — at least when it comes to the memorable dot-com advertisements of the late 1990s and 2000.
That was arguably the best era for Super Bowl ads, but there were other boom times as well — which, coincidence or not, often seem to come when confidence in the economy is rising. The landmark Apple “1984” commercial highlighted one of the best Super Bowls for ad-watchers, and the Reaganomics-fueled years that followed were stocked with plenty of clever spots as well.
There’s no formula to determine for sure whether this year’s Super Bowl ads will be hilarious or horrible. But if you look at what’s going on in the country right now, you might get at least part of your answer.
“Every year it really does mirror the biggest trends that year — what’s happening in the economy and what’s happening in the culture,” said Barbara Lippert, an Adweek advertising critic. “(During) one of the years that seemed to be a recession year in the 1990s, there were suddenly lots of commercials about home offices. Staples and others joined the pack, because suddenly everyone was a consultant from home.”
In terms of quality, history shows that morally and socially cautious times seem to be bad for viewers. Arguably the worst ads in recent years came during Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005, the year following Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction.” Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002, the year after the Sept. 11 attacks, was also forgettable — except for a spot where the Budweiser Clydesdales knelt down facing the empty space where the Twin Towers stood.
The first dotcom boom was anything but cautious, and the results were creative, often self-deprecating (the E*Trade “Well we just wasted $2 million bucks. What are you doing with your money” ad) and occasionally very funny.
“There were a couple of years there — 1998, 1999 and 2000 — where the landscape of ads were unlike any we have ever seen before, or have seen since,” said Steve Hall, an advertising and marketing veteran who founded Adrants.com. “You had advertisers like Cisco and other high technology companies that you would never imagine would spend that kind of money. You had advertisers on there who no longer exist.”
Below are arguably the five best years for Super Bowl ads — based on popularity of the advertisements with audiences, not the success of the companies that paid for them.
5. The year: 1984
Highlights include: Apple “1984”; McDonalds “Meat N’ Potatoes”
The breakdown: Employment numbers were finally on the rise again, and so was the quality of these ads. Viewers remember the Ridley Scott-directed “1984” ad for the Apple MacIntosh, but there were other fun entries — including a couple of clever McDonald’s ads plus an always reliable Master Lock bullet spot. Celebrity appearances were particularly interesting this year, with Bill Bixby shilling for Radio Shack and Alan Alda selling game consoles for Atari.
Discuss: What’s your favorite Super Bowl ad?
4. The year 1999
Highlights include: Monster.com “When I Grow Up”; Budweiser “Dalmatians Separated at Birth”
The breakdown: As the dotcom money started pouring in, Monster.com’s hilarious kid-themed spot (“When I grow up, I want to be forced into early retirement …”) made everyone forget bad entries by HotJobs and Buy.com. Anheuser Busch also had one of its best years, featuring a doomed lobster that holds a bottle of Bud Light hostage and a simple-yet-effective checkout aisle spot featuring two slackers who have to choose between toilet paper and a six-pack. The Victoria Secret Web-only fashion show was a success of sorts — the site crashed because of too much traffic.
3. The year: 1995
Highlights include: Budweiser “Frogs”; Pepsi “Diner”; Pepsi “Sucked In”
The breakdown: The “Bud … wise … errrrr” frog ads were the audience favorite in this solid lineup from the heart of the Clinton era. But there were other successes as well, including a clever Doritos spot playing off Texas Gov. Ann Richards and New York Gov. Mario Cuomo’s political differences (“Mmmm. These are so good, I think I’ll eat them liberally”). Pepsi had a great lineup, with a Pepsi and Coke distributor who try to find peace in a diner, a boy who gets sucked into a Pepsi bottle and a clever spot with a frustrating vending machine bill changer.
2. The year: 2003
Highlights include: Reebok “Terry Tate Office Linebacker”; FedEx “Castaway”; Budweiser “Horse Football Instant Replay.”
The breakdown: A year and a half removed from the Sept. 11 attacks and a year before the “Nipplegate” fiasco, advertisers were having fun again. “Terry Tate Office Linebacker” and the FedEx lampoon of the Tom Hanks film “Castaway” got the biggest laughs, and there were many effective celebrity ads – including Willie Nelson for H&R Block, a surprisingly humorous Yao Ming for Visa and several increasingly funny Pepsi Twist spots with Ozzy Osbourne and his family – who move in next to the Osmonds.
1. The year: 2000
Highlights include: EDS “Cat Herders”; E*Trade “Wasted $2 Million”; Mountain Dew “Bad Cheetah”
The breakdown: Irrational exuberance has its advantages. Emboldened by the success of Monster.com’s 1999 ad, more than 15 dot-commers participated – and they were willing to go places that traditional Super Bowl ad powerhouses such as Budweiser and Pepsi would never venture. E*Trade’s famous “We just wasted $2 million bucks …” ad was a keeper, but even the bad ones this year were pretty interesting. (Remember that trippy Pets.com hand puppet-themed “If You Leave Me Now” spot?) “Cat Herders” from EDS was another classic.
via msnbc.msn.com
February 1, 2007
Article updated for 2008 msnbc.msn.com
Thirty-four years ago this month, Farrah Fawcett sensuously applied Noxzema to Joe Namath’s manly chin — touching off an escalating arms race of expensive Super Bowl commercials that have frequently been more entertaining than the games.
Last year, advertisers weren’t shy about spending $2.5 million on a 30-second commercial, but only the Budweiser “Magic Fridge” commercial came within striking distance of our Top 10 list.
Below are the best Super Bowl commercials of all time, the keys to their success and the prospects of the company after the spot aired. As you can see, just because people are still talking about an ad more than 20 years later doesn’t mean the product changed the world:
10. Budweiser “Frogs” (1995):
Three frogs, perched on a log outside a bar, croaking, “Bud … Weis … Errrrrr.”
What worked: The fact that Budweiser milks every commercial concept to death – does anyone doubt there will be a “Magic Fridge 2” this year? — makes it easy to forget how cool this ad was when you first heard it. The buildup was great, with an oddly infectious catchphrase.
The results: For better or worse, the frog ads and the spin-off lizard commercials made Budweiser — which was starting to become an old-guy drink — cool again for younger partiers.
9. Xerox “Monks” (1977): Faced with a hopelessly mundane copying job, Brother Dominic puts down his quill pen and turns to a Xerox 9200 duplicating system.
What worked: “Monks” seems a bit dated now, like watching NBA video from the early 1950s. But this was the George Mikan of early Super Bowl commercials, with a narrative style and series of punch lines that set the pioneering tone for hundreds of ads that followed.
The results: The promise to reproduce documents “at an incredible two pages per second” may not seem impressive now, but Xerox is now used as both a noun and a verb – the definition of a successful brand.
8. Tabasco “Mosquito” (1998): A mosquito tries to draw blood from a Tabasco-loving yokel — with explosive results.
What worked: The commercial was simple, funny and violent. With no dialogue, no music and only two characters (including the exploding insect), Tabasco memorably promoted its brand.
The results: Tabasco still hasn’t replaced ketchup in the condiment market, and probably never will. With its huge loyal following, does Tabasco even need commercials?
7. Electronic Data Systems “Herding Cats” (2000): A “Bonanza”-like family of cat herders talk about life on the range.
What worked: Kitties and cowboys made this a favorite for both kids and adults, but the near-seamless special effects were the real MVP. Advertiser EDS came back a year later with a similar formula, featuring the “Running of the Squirrels.”
The results: We still don’t know what EDS does, but it has 117,000 employees and just signed a $1.27 billion contract extension with the British Ministry of Defense — so the ad certainly didn’t hurt the company.
6. McDonald’s “The Showdown” (1993): Michael Jordan and Larry Bird engage in a physics-defying hoops-shooting contest for a Big Mac and fries.
What worked: Every basketball fan knows that Bird would win this contest 10 out of 10 times, but it was still a clever idea with a catchphrase that continues to pop up in “Horse” games. (“Over the second rafter, off the floor … nothing but net.”)
The results: This commercial seems to have blessed everyone involved. Jordan won three more championships and Bird transitioned into a solid career as a coach. And while salads and chicken products have been killing off the rest of the menu, the cholesterol-heavy Big Mac value meal remains an untouchable fast-food staple.
5. Monster.com “When I Grow Up …” (1999): A group of kids stare at the camera and declare their desire to “have a brown nose,” “be a yes man” and “claw my way up to middle management.”
What worked: Kids are cute, and even cuter when reciting lines such as, “When I grow up … I want to be forced into early retirement.” It was great brand recognition for the new company.
The results: Monster survived the dot-com implosion and despite a stock controversy in 2006 has become a prosperous company that employs close to 5,000 people worldwide.
4. Reebok “Terry Tate: Office Linebacker” (2003): To boost productivity, a CEO recruits a linebacker from Reebok to slam into a series of “Office Space”-style cubicle drones.
What worked: A series of brutal hits, punctuated by lines such as, “Break was over 15 minutes ago, Mitch!” made this the best Super Bowl ad of the last five years.
The results: Terry Tate got people talking about Reebok for something other than sweatshop controversies. The company provides shoes for all the major sports and hosts clothing lines for rappers Jay-Z and 50 Cent.
3. E*Trade “Monkey” (2000): Two dim-witted guys and a monkey clap to some cha-cha music in a garage, followed by the punch line: “Well we just wasted 2 million bucks. What are you doing with your money?”
What worked: Easily the cheapest ad of the year to produce, it was an instant classic —remaining self-deprecating about dot-com excess while lampooning the well-publicized cost of Super Bowl ad time.
The results: The marketing Gods have a way of punishing tech companies that blow too much money on flashy ads. (See: Pets.com. Or don’t. They haven’t been around since 2000.) E*Trade lost hundreds of millions of dollars in 2001 and 2002, and the company’s shares — once trading at more than $60 — dropped below $3 in 2002. The company has since bounced back to profitability.
2. Coke “Mean Joe Greene” (1979): A kid offers his Coca-Cola to a battle-weary “Mean Joe” Greene — who softens up enough to toss his jersey as a reward.
What worked: A cute kid with a soft drink was the perfect foil for the surly Greene. Grown men still burst into tears when thinking about “Mean Joe” throwing that jersey.
The results: The ad became an instant pop culture classic, boosting Greene’s career. Among the offshoots was the inspiring “The Steeler and the Pittsburgh Kid” — perhaps the first hourlong TV movie in history to be based on a one-minute commercial.
1. Apple “1984” (1984): A jogger representing Apple throws a sledgehammer into a giant Big Brother image representing IBM — promising a populist shift in the future of personal computers.
What worked: With “Blade Runner” director Ridley Scott in charge, the ad generated more hype — and post-game water cooler talk — than any television commercial in history. Do you even remember who played in the Super Bowl in 1984? (L.A. Raiders and Washington.) You almost certainly remember the biggest Super Bowl ad of the year.
The results: The most storied Super Bowl ad of all time might have boosted sales of George Orwell books, hot red running shorts and sledgehammers. But it didn’t do much for the Macintosh — Apple continues to be the Reform Party of computer manufacturers. Maybe there was a storage locker filled with iPhones behind that huge video screen?
Honorable mentions: Pepsi “Apartment 10G” (1987); Pepsi “Diner” (1995); Pepsi “Sucked in” (1995); Mountain Dew “Bad Cheetah” (2000); Budweiser “Magic Fridge” (2006).
via msnbc.msn.com
January 31, 2007
“The Super Bowl ads are better than the game.”
No doubt you’ve heard at least one friend or relative make that statement, usually after a few drinks, a large gambling loss or a horrible set of Super Bowl events that mock the sports gods — such as Washington quarterback Mark Rypien being named MVP.
But have we really reached the point where commercials have become more entertaining than the sporting event that surrounds them?
Football purists will say they hate the ads, but they still seem to talk about them as much as the game itself. A good Super Bowl might get lost in your memory, but a good Super Bowl ad will be embedded in your brain for years to come. Chances are you remember every line and camera angle from Coke’s famous “Mean Joe Greene” commercial from 1979. But can you name the two teams that played the same year?
The rise in publicity for Super Bowl ads, big halftime shows and other off-field stunts are no accident. Although the Nielsen ratings for the Super Bowl have fallen over the decades, the game-watching demographic has widened to include more women and men who don’t like the sport.
“Originally it was just a football game, and guys who liked football were the ones who watched it,” says Don Bruzzone of Alameda’s Bruzzone Research Co., which has been measuring the effectiveness of Super Bowl commercials since 1992. “And then all of a sudden it grew into an extravaganza that would appeal to almost everybody.”
Super Bowl advertisements will cost about $2.6 million for a 30-second spot this year. (They cost a “mere” $324,000 when the San Francisco 49ers beat the Cincinnati Bengals in 1982.)
Bruzzone’s Paul Shellenberg says in terms of who’s advertising, 2007 is looking a lot like 2006 — with regulars such as Budweiser and Pepsi returning with several spots. As of Monday afternoon, there were fewer movie spots scheduled than usual, although Shellenberg said the studios often wait until the last minute.
The ads are a huge gamble for advertisers. Bruzzone’s research shows that a successful commercial gives a buyer eight times the impact of an ad that doesn’t resonate.
The price for an ad has become a punch line, which has even been used in the commercials themselves. When all the figures are added up, though, Bruzzone says research shows that advertisers aren’t throwing away their money.
“There are a lot of intelligent people making decisions about this sort of thing,” Bruzzone says. “They’re priced at just about what they’re worth.”
Bruzzone doesn’t keep track of which are “good years” and “bad years” for Super Bowl advertisers. Fortunately, we do. What surrounds this article is a sincere and enthusiastic — while not especially objective — attempt to determine whether the ads are, in fact, more entertaining than the game.
My methodology was simple, if not scientific: I’ve already watched every game for the past 10 years, and I spent several afternoons last week watching Super Bowl ads archived on YouTube and the very helpful Superbowl-ads.com Web site.
You can decide whether it’s worth your time to add up my winners and losers to find out who’s ahead — but I will reveal that it’s close. Look for a Monday morning SFGate.com Culture Blog entry that determines whether Sunday’s Super Bowl commercials were better than the game.
XXXI (1997)
The game: Green Bay 35, New England 21
The ads: Fred Astaire dances with a Dirt Devil vacuum and Holiday Inn promotes their renovations by joking about a guy who has undergone a sex change.
Final score: Neither side wanted to win. The game was predictably one-sided — Brett Favre (left) and the Packers were favored by 14 points and won by 14 points — but the ads were worse, including a digitally enhanced Astaire corpse and Holiday Inn’s big “screw you” to the gay, lesbian and transgender community. Football 9, commercials 2
The ads: Louie the Lizard tries killing off the Budweiser frogs, while a guy eating a lot of Tabasco spells doom for a mosquito that tries to suck his blood.
Final score: Terrell Davis running over the heavily favored Packers was cool, as was the sight of John Elway receiving his first Super Bowl ring. But it’s hard to beat an exploding bug. Commercials 31, football 24
The ads: The Monster.com “When I Grow Up” ads spoof corporate culture, Budweiser has a firehouse dalmatian puppy spot and Victoria’s Secret’s sexy ad proves that horny men are still the primary Super Bowl demographic.
Final score: Not sure what was more annoying — Just for Feet’s semi-racist ad that appeared to feature white guys tranquilizing a black runner from Kenya or the Atlanta Falcons’ stupid “dirty bird” dance. The ads gain the edge when Falcons safety Eugene Robinson gets arrested for solicitation of prostitution the night before the game. Commercials 14, football 10
The ads: E-Trade unveils its classic dancing monkey/”We just wasted 2 million bucks” commercial and EDS features its memorable spot about cat herders.
Final score: This is why TiVo was invented. The 2000 Super Bowl and commercial-fest were both so entertaining that there was literally no time to urinate. With arguably the most entertaining Super Bowl of all time and the best commercials falling on the same year, there can be no losers. Commercials 42, football 42 (tie)
The ads: Cedric the Entertainer shills for Budweiser, Bob Dole shills for Pepsi and EDS features the “running of the squirrels.”
Final score: Not a great year for commercials — does anyone even know what EDS sells? But the ads were still way better than this defense-oriented game, which featured the coma-inducing combination of Trent Dilfer and Kerry Collins as starting quarterbacks. Commercials 15, football 6
The ads: Charles Schwab features Barry Bonds, the Coen brothers direct an H&R Block commercial and several ads feature 9/11 tributes.
Final score: The post-9/11 commercials were classy, but became repetitive — and in retrospect, the Barry Bonds/Hank Aaron home run goof looks like something that should be turned over to the grand jury. The football game was a lot better, with Adam Vinatieri (above) kicking a last-minute field goal to seal the win. Football 28, commercials 17
The ads: Reebok’s Terry Tate: Office Linebacker, the “Cast Away” movie spoof and a Clydesdale football instant replay commercial all generate big laughs.
Final score: The only thing uglier than Budweiser’s crude “Upside Down Clown” ad was the Raiders’ game plan, which gave up 34 unanswered points to former Oakland coach Jon Gruden’s Buccaneers. The refs almost had to invoke the mercy rule in this contest. Commercials 72, football 0
The ads: A Sierra Mist commercial featuring a bagpiper getting cold air blown up his kilt looks like a Jane Austen film next to Budweiser’s flatulent horse. The 78 other ads seem to be focused on erectile dysfunction.
Final score: Everything went right during the game — a great contest between the Panthers and Patriots — and everything went wrong between plays. Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” (above) highlighted the crude and unoriginal commercials, which led to audience outrage and FCC action. Football 41, commercials minus 212
The ads: Diddy arrives at the red carpet in a Pepsi truck, Budweiser introduces a trash-talking cockatiel, and Ameriquest has a couple of decent-but-forgettable mistaken-identity ads.
Final score: Even though we didn’t have to see Mickey Rooney’s bare bottom (it was banned by the fun police), this was definitely a rebuilding year for the ad industry. Meanwhile, Tom Brady, linebacker Mike Vrabel (left) and the Patriots held off the Eagles and Terrell Owens, who stopped acting crazy for a few hours and added some drama by playing hurt. Football 35, commercials 3
The ads: A caveman gets chided for not using FedEx (it hasn’t been invented yet), Jim Henson’s Muppets are everywhere and the “magic fridge” gets Budweiser back on track.
Final score: The Seahawks didn’t come to play and neither did many of the advertisers, but at least we got to see a prehistoric dude get stomped on by a brontosaurus. Commercials 10, football 9
via sfgate.com
January 23, 2006
via askmen.com/
Find out how much Anheuser-Busch, Pepsi, General Motors, and Visa are spending to get some play at Super Bowl XL.
By Steve Seepersaud, Sports Analyst
Question: What company was going to sponsor a pay-per-view football game played by models wearing lingerie?
Answer: Chrysler backed out of a deal to sponsor the “Lingerie Bowl,” which was set to air during the halftime of Super Bowl XXXVIII.
How much does it cost to gain the attention of 90 million Americans and one billion people around the globe? This is the question advertisers ask themselves every year when evaluating the purchase of commercial time during America’s most watched sporting event, the American Nurses Association’s Bi-Annual Bowling Festival. Just kidding; of course, it’s the Super Bowl.
Ultimately, because so many eyes and ears are tuned into the Super Bowl, advertising time does not go cheaply. But luckily for broadcasters, cost is not a deterrent for the corporations that are dead set on bringing their product to the coveted Super Sunday audience.
AskMen.com took a long look and figured out who the big Super Bowl advertisers are, how much they’re spending in 2006, and what types of advertising they purchased. Whether they’re pushing beer or Britney Spears, you’ll be amazed at the money companies spend to ensure that Super Sunday fans are just as entertained by the 30-second ads as they are by the 15-minute quarters.
All amounts are in U.S. dollars.
2006 spending: $26 million for 10 30-second spots during the game, at about $2.6 million each.
2005 spending: $24 million for the same amount of airtime.
The company that claims to be the King of Beers is also the King of Super Bowl advertising. Anheuser-Busch, which has produced the exclusive beer of the big game for 18 years, is buying 10 30-second units for the Super Bowl XL telecast.
ABC, the network broadcasting the 2006 game from Ford Field in Detroit, allegedly sold those spots for a record-high figure of nearly $2.6 million apiece. On top of that, Anheuser-Busch is producing about 3.7 million Bud and Bud Light special edition bottles marked with a Bud Bowl Detroit logo.
Last year marked the eighth in a row in which Anheuser-Busch bought up the most advertising for the NFL’s title game. The brewer spent about $24 million in 2005 to buy 10 of the game’s 58 30-second ads. The expense appeared to have paid off; for the seventh straight year, the beer producer dominated the annual USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter (which gauges audience approval of advertisements).
Producing Super Bowl commercials is serious business for Anheuser-Busch; the brewer hires several competing agencies to produce commercials solely for the big game. Having produced the spots, the brewer pays about 800 people $50 apiece to watch them and offer feedback. Just a year ago, agencies produced a total of 25 potential ads for Bud to consider running during Super Bowl XXXIX; only nine made the cut. Over the years, the ads have featured Bud and Bud Light facing off in the Bud Bowl as well as the talking Budweiser frogs. In 2002, millions of viewers saw the trademark Clydesdale horses bowing down before the Manhattan skyline, which had been the site of a terrorist attack just months earlier.
Pepsi and GM aren’t stingy come Super Bowl time…
2006 spending: $10.4 million for four 30-second in-game spots, at $2.6 million each.
2005 spending: $3.6 million for two iTunes commercials.
America’s No. 2 choice when it comes to soft drinks is also the second-biggest advertiser come Super Bowl Sunday. Diet Pepsi is the official soft drink of the NFL and the presenting sponsor of SuperBowl.com. According to AdAge.com, the company that tries to bring us the joy of cola is buying four 30-second spots for 2006.
According to Forbes, Pepsi spent $3.6 million in 2005 for two commercials informing consumers of their one-in-three chance of winning a free iTunes download with each Pepsi-brand soft drink purchase. That deal may have sounded good on the surface, but viewers weren’t impressed with the spots, giving them low grades in the aforementioned influential Ad Meter.
In 2002, Pepsi spent millions on high-priced flops featuring Britney Spears. A very expensive 90-second ad showed the pop princess traveling through time, while another spot that took up a third of the time (and cost a third as much) showed Britney singing doo-wop at a 1950s-style diner.
The going rate for a 30-second unit that year was $1.9 million; do the math and you’ll see that the Britney ads cost Pepsi a total of almost $8 million, while ultimately earning low Ad Meter marks. Pepsi also spent $4 million in 2004 for a pair of short commercials for their iced tea brand, Lipton Brisk.
2006 spending: $5.2 million for one 60-second spot.
2005 spending: $14.4 million for six 30-second in-game spots, at $2.4 million each.
In 2006, America’s largest carmaker is trying to make the most of the Super Bowl’s presence in the Motor City. To mark football’s epic return to the home of the automobile, General Motors is showcasing its luxury Cadillac brand in ads and sponsorships related to the big event. Its Escalade SUV will receive particular focus in a minute-long commercial that is expected to air during the second quarter of the game.
According to ad rates listed by CNN Money report, GM’s 60-second expenditure will run the company a cool $5.2 million. Last year, GM bought up six in-game spots for a relatively cheaper price of $2.4 million each.
In addition to the fact that the game is being played in GM’s hometown, there have been suggestions that the car manufacturer is going all-out because the host stadium, Ford Field, bears the name of a major competitor. Not to be outdone, GM wrapped its headquarters in downtown Detroit with Super Bowl and Cadillac logos that cover 20 of the Renaissance Center’s 73 stories.
In 2004, GM was the third-biggest Super Bowl advertiser, plunking down a total of $9 million. That price tag included a pair of minute-long ads for Cadillac and the lower-end Chevrolet brands, at a cost of more than $4 million each. In addition to buying commercial time immediately after the game, GM also fronted the money for Cadillac to be the sponsor of the post-game show and MVP award.
Will Visa run up some debt of its own for the big game?
2006 spending: $0.
The credit card company that says it’s everywhere you want to be is not going to be on television during Super Bowl XL. Instead of spending money on the NFL’s annual extravaganza, Visa will funnel its ad dollars to the Winter Olympics, which are set to begin less than a week later.
Many industry experts say that Visa will get more bang for its buck over two weeks of the Olympics than it would for a couple of minutes of airtime on the NFL’s biggest day. Relatively speaking, advertising at the Winter Games is a bargain. NBC is charging $700,000 per 30-second unit, a fraction of the cost of a Super Bowl spot.
Despite its absence from this year’s broadcast, Visa has run very successful Super Bowl campaigns in the past that continue to linger in the national consciousness. People who watched Super Bowl XXXIX will remember a Visa ad in which Marvel Comics superheroes came to the rescue of a woman whose debit card was stolen. The company shelled out $2.4 million for the spot.
Back in 1997, former Republican presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Bob Dole was stumping for Visa during the Super Bowl. Dole didn’t say how much he made for this non-political gig; ad industry insiders suggest that he made a total of more than $1 million for hawking Visa cards and Pepsi.
When a commercial appears on a television screen, it’s usually a cue to change the channel, go to the bathroom or head to the kitchen to get a snack. Super Bowl Sunday is the rare exception. The pressure for innovative ads combined with a massive viewing audience has turned these few hours of broadcasting into a cultural institution.
On one Sunday a year, the biggest companies in the country all vie for a chance to imprint themselves on the nation’s collective psyche using talking frogs, dancing pop stars and Republicans. And, hey, when considering the cultural impact that these advertising spots have, $80,000 dollars a second doesn’t seem so much.
via askmen.com
December 12, 2005
By Steve McClellan, Adweek and John Consoli
The price tag for a 30-second spot on Super Bowl XL, on ABC Feb. 5, 2006, is flat versus a year ago, when it was $2.4 million, sources said, making it the third time in five years that the cost to advertise during the big game has not increased. In addition, the Winter Olympics, as well as clients’ interest in newer ad platforms like wireless and an unwillingness to undergo the creative scrutiny of Super Bowl ads, could divert some dollars from the football telecast, media buyers said last week.
Perennial advertiser Visa is believed to be one client forgoing the Super Bowl in favor of the Olympics, and McDonald’s, an on-again-off-again Super Bowl advertiser that had one spot last year, is also taking a pass in 2006.
The Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, coming just five days after the Super Bowl, was partly behind the decision of both Visa and McDonald’s to bow out of the game, sources said. Both are heavy Olympic advertisers and reason that their dollars will buy more exposure over the two-week Olympic run than 30 seconds during the game. One 30-second unit in the Olympics sells for about $700,000, roughly one-third the price of the upcoming Super Bowl.
“Spots in the Olympics are much cheaper, so you can run several to make up for the audience you would get in one Super Bowl spot, and there is no scrutiny about the creative level of commercials during the Olympics,” said one media agency executive who buys ads for clients in both events.
Just how seriously clients take their Super Bowl advertising can be seen in the controversy generated during last year’s telecast on Fox, when GoDaddy.com ran an ad that drew viewer complaints for being too risqué; Fox pulled that same spot later in the telecast. Fox insiders said Pepsi, which was in the same commercial pod as the first GoDaddy spot, also complained to the network about the ad, contending that it ruined the environment for its own spots.
Media buyers also said last week that the inevitable flurry of critiques and consumer polls following the game, such as the one in USA Today, is giving advertisers pause.
“Some just don’t like the scrutiny that comes with advertising in the Super Bowl,” said one ad agency executive.
Sources said McDonald’s was particularly miffed last year when its “Lincoln Fry” spot got spectacularly poor reviews among critics and consumers. The company had decided last year that if its spot didn’t make the top 10 in the USA Today poll, it would not be back in the ’06 game, sources said. McDonald’s had no comment.
Still, some brands don’t want to miss the chance to reach the usual 100 million-plus viewers in the U.S. Ameriquest, CareerBuilder.com, FedEx and Paramount all confirmed they are returning.
Anheuser-Busch, the biggest advertiser in the game for years (it’s had the exclusive beer category for 18 years), is returning again with its typical 10 units. But the beer maker will be reevaluating the strategy going forward, said vp, global media and sports marketing Tony Ponturo. “We’ve had benefits doing long-term [Super Bowl] deals, but we’ll be more cautious to some degree because you may tie up dollars that you want flexibility on going out years two and three” in a contract, explained Ponturo.
Last month, the St. Louis-based company said it would begin to shift ad dollars from TV to cable and the Internet. “When you realize that 55 to 60 percent of TV time for viewers 21 to 34 years old is spent with cable, and they’re spending six hours a week on the Internet,” Ponturo said, “you better spread your dollars to the consumer.” That said, he added that A-B “still believes strongly” in the Super Bowl as an ad vehicle.
The price of a 30-second spot has remained relatively flat in recent years because, sources say, marketers have become more reluctant to spend so much. In the 24 years that Nielsen Monitor-Plus has tracked prices in the game, the cost to advertise has increased all but six times, with five of those instances coming in the last 10 years. More recently, the price for the 2003 telecast was down 2 percent to $2.15 million per :30. In 2002, the price was unchanged at $2.2 million.
How far along ABC is in selling the game is uncertain. The network would not comment at all last week on its progress—a possible sign that the game may not be selling as well as in past years.
Normally at this time of year, at least 75 percent of the 58 in-game spots have been sold, and the network with the game confirms, if only on background, how many it has left. Last year at this time, Fox was 75 percent sold, and in 2003, CBS was roughly 80 percent sold.
There are some indications from the client side that Super Bowl time is not selling as quickly as in past years. Procter & Gamble confirmed that its brands would be on the sidelines for the second consecutive year, with the possible exception of recently acquired Gillette, for which plans have not been finalized, a company representative said. And perennial advertiser Pepsi is reducing its spot load by one or two, sources said.
General Motors will showcase its Cadillac brand once again this year, but a rep said the number of spots that GM will put in the game was not finalized (last year it had six in-game spots). But the automaker still sees value in the game. Said Steve Tihanyi, GM’s director of entertainment and spots sponsorships, “Even people who don’t care about the game want to be a part of it in some way because it’s so big.”
February 4, 2005
http://www.adweek.com/aw/national/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000789386
By Steve McClellan
NEW YORK Three days before the big game, Fox confirmed it has sold all available TV commercial slots on Sunday’s Super Bowl.
All told, 59 ads will run during the telecast.
That’s assuming there are no last minute withdrawals, such as Ford’s decision to pull its Lincoln Mark LT “Lust” spot, which generated complaints from a group that found it offensive to sexual-abuse victims of Roman Catholic priests. A commercial for the Ford Mustang will run in its place [Adweek Online, Feb. 3].
Ad sales for the Super Bowl usually go down to the wire, and sources said CBS last year sold the final available spot the day before the game. (The fourth-quarter can be an especially tough sell, owing to the risk of a blowout and fears that the audience will tune out).
Fox will reap approximately $142 million in paid media during the game, sources said. Total Super Bowl sales for the network and its owned and operated TV stations will likely exceed $200 million, sources said.
Fox declined to comment on the exact numbers, although the company rep noted that the last time Fox had the game in 2002, the last spot was also sold just three days before kick off.
The average cost of a 30-second Super Bowl spot was $2.4 million, up slightly from last year.
February 4, 2005
http://www.adweek.com/aw/regional/west/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000789762
By Gregory Solman
LOS ANGELES A study of Super Bowl advertising effectiveness shows that movies marketed during the big game perform 40 percent better at the box office than films that are not.
The report by Rama Yelkur, Chuck Tomkovick and Patty Traczyk, of the marketing department of the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, was first published in the Journal of Advertising Research. It covered 21 movies advertising on the Super Bowl telecast from 1998 to 2001, though the professors said the model has been shown to apply to 2002 to 2004. In 2003, for example, all 10 movies advertised on the game opened at No. 1 at the box office.
“We studied the movies because the data is pure and available,” said Tomkovick. “In a sense, it is always a new product,” with no prior box-office accumulation. The research discovered that movie marketers who advertise on the Super Bowl earn better opening weekend revenue, first week business and bigger total U.S. receipts.
To purify their model, the authors dismissed artsy, small- and mid-budget releases that would be unlikely candidates to advertise at Super Bowl rates of millions of dollars per 30-second spot. “We looked at male-oriented, youth-oriented action or comedy movies in pre-packaged forms,” said Yelkur. “The movies compared had to have made the top 10 for at least one week. And we looked only at February to August releases.”
Tomkovick added that the study took into account the placement of the movie within the game, and factored “a smattering of [overall] marketing investment as a criteria” to even the playing field. “The score of the game doesn’t turn off the Super Bowl advertising viewers,” he said, adding that 8 percent of all viewers watch the game solely for the new commercials. “In fact, we’re found that the less scintillating the game, the more attention is paid to the commercials. That’s how it’s gone from being the Super Bowl to the Bud Bowl to the Ad Bowl.”
February 2, 2005
http://www.sportsbusinessnews.com/index.asp?story_id=43884
Spending millions to advertise in the Feb. 6 Super Bowl will likely pay off for Hollywood’s movie studios, say marketing experts at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, who have studied Super Bowl advertising for five years.
Advertisements during the high-profile game are selling for an average of $2.4 million per 30-second spot, a record amount for the National Football League’s championship game.
The movie industry is among those most likely to benefit from advertising in the game, said Charles Tomkovick, UW-Eau Claire professor of management and marketing, who with Rama Yelkur, associate professor of management and marketing, completed the first known Super Bowl advertising effectiveness study of its kind.
“All else being equal, spending $2 million-plus for a movie ad in the Super Bowl will pay off handsomely for most studios,” Tomkovick said.
Research results, which were published in the Journal of Advertising Research, found that the average Super Bowl promoted film achieved twice as much first weekend, first week and total U.S. box office revenue than non- Super Bowl promoted movies. Even when researchers applied more rigorous tests, controlling for release dates and budget size, they found similar results.
Hollywood began running a couple of Super Bowl ads in the early 1990s. Then in 1996, Fox spent $1.1 million to promote “Independence Day,” which achieved U.S. revenues of $300 million and $500 million worldwide.
“This was the turning point,” Yelkur said. “Movie advertisers en masse realized the benefits of Super Bowl advertising.” Eight movies were advertised in 2002 and 10 in 2003.
Researchers examined box office gross revenues for movies advertised during the 1998-2001 Super Bowls. They compared it with data from a random sample of movies that weren’t advertised during the game over the same time. They compared first weekend, first week and total U.S. box office revenues. They controlled for movie release dates and refined their analysis to include only high budget films.
Opening weekend revenues for Super Bowl promoted movies in 2002 and 2003 were phenomenal, Tomkovick said. Fifteen of the 18 earned the top U.S. Box Office position for their opening weekend. Two came in second and the weakest of the 18 premiered at No. 4.
Source:University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
January 26, 2005
http://www.nwherald.com/StyleSection/313174661107154.php
NORTHWEST HERALD
EAU CLAIRE, Wis. – Spending millions to advertise in the Feb. 6 Super Bowl will likely pay off for Hollywood’s movie studios, say marketing experts at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, who have studied Super Bowl advertising for five years.
Advertisements during the high-profile game are selling for an average of $2.4 million per 30-second spot, a record amount for the National Football League’s championship game.
The movie industry is among those most likely to benefit from advertising in the game, said Charles Tomkovick, UW-Eau Claire professor of management and marketing, who with Rama Yelkur, associate professor of management and marketing, completed the first known Super Bowl advertising effectiveness study of its kind.
“All else being equal, spending $2 million-plus for a movie ad in the Super Bowl will pay off handsomely for most studios,” Tomkovick said.
Research results, which were published in the Journal of Advertising Research, found that the average Super Bowl promoted film achieved twice as much first weekend, first week and total U.S. box office revenue than non-Super Bowl promoted movies. Even when researchers applied more rigorous tests, controlling for release dates and budget size, they found similar results.
Hollywood began running a couple of Super Bowl ads in the early 1990s. Then in 1996, Fox spent $1.1 million to promote “Independence Day,” which achieved U.S. revenues of $300 million and $500 million worldwide.
“This was the turning point,” Yelkur said. “Movie advertisers en masse realized the benefits of Super Bowl advertising.” Eight movies were advertised in 2002 and 10 in 2003.
Researchers examined box office gross revenues for movies advertised during the 1998-2001 Super Bowls. They compared it with data from a random sample of movies that weren’t advertised during the game over the same time. They compared first weekend, first week and total U.S. box office revenues. They controlled for movie release dates and refined their analysis to include only high budget films.
January 28, 2004
http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2004/01/28/making_sure_ads_play_to_women_too/
Firms tailor messages as Super Bowl draws more female viewers
By Keith Reed, Globe Staff
Between plays during Super Bowl XXXVIII on Sunday, viewers will see commercials for cars, impotence drugs, and, of course, beer — none of which will come as a surprise to the more than 40 million men who will once again sit down to watch the game.
But while Super Bowl commercials will continue to be mostly male-oriented this year, there is at least one unusual pitch: a commercial showcasing the softness of Charmin toilet paper, a product whose core buyer is a “family-centric mom,” says its maker.
Charmin’s manufacturer, Procter & Gamble — one of the companies that puts the soap ads in soap operas — is aiming its message at the large and growing female contingent of Super Bowl viewers. Women make up more than a third of the viewing audience for the Super Bowl, and that audience is growing, giving brands like Charmin increasing motivation to use the game to target core consumers.
“The changing demographics of the Super Bowl viewers really meant a lot here,” said John Brase, brand manager for Procter & Gamble’s Charmin.
It won’t be cheap for Procter & Gamble, or any other marketer, to reach its audience. Thirty seconds of airtime during this year’s Super Bowl sold for a record $2.25 million, according to the trade publication Advertising Age.
While advertisers this year are still by and large going after the lucrative 18- to 34-year-old male viewer, marketing specialists say they’ve recognized the clout of female football fans, and taken pains to at least ensure Super Bowl commercials won’t offend them.
“As an advertiser, you don’t want to alienate 20 or 30 or 40 million women via the catfight beer ad,” said Andrew Rohm, assistant professor of marketing at Northeastern University, referring to Miller Lite’s 2003 campaign that featured two women mud-wrestling over whether the beer “tastes great” or is “less filling.”
“The Super Bowl has far too wide an audience mix between males and females to take that approach,” he said. “You’re going to end up either wasting a lot of money or alienating a potential part of the market. The stakes are too high for an advertiser to do that.”
The ranks of female Super Bowl watchers are growing. About 32.6 million of last year’s viewers were adult females, up from 30.6 million in 2001 and 32.2 million in 2002, according to CBS. Perhaps even more telling is that last year 85 percent more adult women watched the Super Bowl than watched the Academy Awards, according to Nielsen Media Research.
The growing number of female football fans has translated into efforts by the National Football League in recent years to market its teams and the game directly to women. All 32 NFL teams hold classes called “NFL 101,” which teaches the rules and history of football to female fans.
About 10,000 women attended the class last year, according to the league, prompting some teams to begin teaching an advanced course and a Spanish-language version this year, said Dan Masonson, an NFL spokesman.
In the past two years, the NFL also increased the amount of apparel and other merchandise for women that it licenses, he said.
“We’ve really stepped up a lot of the merchandise that is made for and fitted for women, so they don’t have to wear a men’s jersey of their favorite team, they can buy one for themselves,” he said.
Still, women have rarely been targeted by many Super Bowl commercials.
“Our target demographic is a mom on the go,” Brase said. “One of the most important things in her day is doing things to take care of her family. You don’t see too many Super Bowl ads aimed at her.”
Men ages 18 and older are still the largest segment of the Super Bowl audience, representing 47.2 percent of the game’s 88.6 million viewers last year, according to CBS, the network broadcasting this year’s Super Bowl. They’ve gotten most of the attention from advertisers, with some of the most famous male-targeted commercials in history debuting during the game.
There will always be plenty of Super Bowl commercials aimed at men because they are an elusive audience for marketers, Rohr said. Men between ages 18 and 34 are a prime demographic because many are not yet married or fathers, and thus have plenty of disposable income. But they’re hard to reach because they tend to watch little television, opting for video games or music during the few hours when they’re at home.
The one exception is the Super Bowl.
“The Super Bowl remains the primary program with which to reach a core demographic of male viewers,” Rohr said.
Even though there are few commercials that target women, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Super Bowl advertisers ignore the women who watch the game, said some advertising specialists.
The Super Bowl has a broader audience than any other program on television, so it makes sense to produce commercials that appeal to broader audiences, said Peter Gardiner, partner and chief media officer at Deutsch Advertising, a New York agency that produced ads for Monster.com, Expedia
.com, and Mitsubishi Motors for this year’s Super Bowl. Gardiner said advertisers have learned, especially in the post-dot-com era, that even during the Super Bowl commercials that seek maximum shock value don’t work. That means over-the-top commercials with overt sexual appeals or other strong content are out.
“Those that tried to do these crazy ads to get instant awareness now realize that was not the way to go,” said Gardiner. “I think just generally you had people who were in there and were doing really crazy stuff, and those people are gone now.”
Monster.com founder Jeff Taylor said his company’s commercials do not target either gender, a strategy many companies are taking this year.
Monster’s ads this year depict a job seeker and an employer — both men — going through their daily routines, which, coincidentally, mirror each other. “I spend the rest of the year targeting diverse types of audiences,” Taylor said. “The Super Bowl is the one place where I don’t worry about the kinds of things that you’re talking about. It attracts young and old, and men and women.”
Keith Reed can be reached at reed@globe.com.
January 27, 2004
http://www.bizreport.com/article.php?art_id=6045
by David A. Vise
Aggressive marketing campaign at end of 2003 could make 2004 earnings appear to be greater than they actually are, according to accounting experts and a former AOL employee.
Michael Setliff, who briefly worked as a financial manager at AOL, said he grew suspicious of the company’s decision to boost its marketing budget.
One year ago, America Online warned Wall Street that 2003 would be a sluggish “reset” year, pledging that growth would return to the beleaguered enterprise this year. The Dulles-based firm appears on track to show improved financial results, but not necessarily because its business is taking off again.
The company is likely to benefit from a decision to boost spending in the final three months of the year. As 2003 drew to a close, AOL substantially increased its marketing and told Wall Street analysts of its intent to do so. Ultimately, senior officials added $49 million, or about 10 percent, to the marketing budget in the fourth quarter, opting to ship more than 125 million AOL software disks — about 25 million more than the firm mailed and distributed free through retailers in the same period of the prior year, according to internal documents and company officials.
The advertising blitz ate into 2003 profit but should help improve the bottom line this year when expenses return to normal and the company collects fees from the new customers it wooed with the added advertising — potentially making any gains in the profitability of the core business appear to be greater than they actually are, according to accounting experts and a former AOL employee.
Michael Setliff, who briefly worked as a financial manager at AOL last fall, said he grew suspicious of whether the decision to boost the marketing budget was really intended to attract new subscribers after he was asked to identify more than $100 million in expenses that could be added in late 2003. AOL officials confirmed that Setliff was asked to undertake the task.
Setliff said that when he questioned the moves, his boss told him the various changes were being made to “manage earnings.”
A spokesman for America Online, Jim Whitney, said nobody ever told Setliff anything about managing earnings. Whitney said the company increased its marketing spending to ensure the best possible launch of AOL 9.0, its newest online software.
“AOL 9.0 is the best received upgrade of our service in our history, and it was released at a time when we are having well-publicized subscriber challenges,” Whitney said. “To claim there is something inappropriate about our aggressively marketing 9.0 is simply off the mark.”
What AOL officials don’t dispute is that the end-of-the-year marketing push was needed to hit 2004 financial targets for growth because the firm is bleeding subscribers at an alarmingly high rate. The company has made no secret of the fact that many customers are leaving to take advantage of cheaper service that relies on dial-up phone connections to the Internet, while others are trading up to higher-priced high-speed broadband service offered by cable and telephone companies.
AOL has said it lost 2 million subscribers in the past year, falling to 24.7 million from 26.7 million. But the company hasn’t publicly disclosed the rate at which it is losing and adding subscribers. According to an internal document labeled “Churn Summary,” AOL initially thought it needed to sign up 18.2 million new customers in 2003 just to stay even. Because of the high churn rate of more than 70 percent, AOL internally projected losing 18.2 million customers last year and signing up 16.5 million new users, resulting in a net loss of 1.7 million customers. Those numbers have since grown worse, AOL officials said.
AOL has said it intends to rebuild the business by selling its own low-cost alternative while heavily promoting a broadband offering that subscribers would pay for in addition to the fees they pay their cable or telephone provider for Internet access. Some accounting specialists, however, said it may be difficult for investors to judge whether the new approach is working, given the way the company loaded up the budget with expenses in late 2003. Any profit surge early this year may be the result of mega-marketing hitting the books in late 2003, and fresh cash from new subscribers pouring in early in 2004.
One financial expert, H. David Sherman, author of “Profits You Can Trust,” called AOL’s addition of tens of millions of dollars to the marketing budget in late 2003 a “red flag” and said AOL appears to be “tilting” its earnings in a way that may mislead investors.
“They hope you forget and attribute it to a better business model,” Sherman said.
Edward I. Adler, corporate spokesman for AOL’s parent Time Warner Corp., said the company fully disclosed to Wall Street that it intended to add marketing dollars to fourth-quarter spending.
On July 23, Time Warner Chief Financial Officer Wayne H. Pace told Wall Street analysts that AOL would “meaningfully ramp up marketing spending” in the second half of 2003. On Oct. 22, Pace updated his earlier remarks, adding, “We expect AOL to ramp up marketing associated with the 9.0 release.”
Setliff, an experienced, 40-year-old financial manager, said he was dismissed after he aggressively questioned what appeared to be the company’s effort to massage 2004 earnings.
“It is not right,” Setliff said in an interview. “They are playing some real games. I got fired because I pushed these questions.”
AOL’s Whitney said the company is booking the expenses appropriately. Setliff was fired after a month for reasons “that had nothing to do with the issues raised in this article,” Whitney said. A letter from AOL to Setliff said he was dismissed because of his workplace demeanor.
Setliff, who has moved on to another firm, said he had never encountered a corporate culture like the one at AOL. A former Internal Revenue Service employee, Setliff also had worked for years at Lucent Technologies Inc., where he gained considerable experience in budgeting and financial management, and was encouraged by his boss, John Barry, to ask tough questions.
“Mike was rock solid, very competent, always straight ahead,” said Barry, director of global operations in the professional services division of Lucent. “He is very knowledgeable. He is a straight-up, focused guy.”
Setliff said he was puzzled when some marketing initiatives for late 2003 were approved, even though according to an analysis by McKinsey & Co., an outside consultant to AOL, they seemed unlikely to prove very profitable. America Online officials decided to spend millions of dollars on mass mailings of AOL disks even though, on a scale of one to 100, where one is the highest level of return, mass mailings rated 90 in profitability, internal company documents show.
Setliff said that whenever he raised questions, his boss, AOL marketing executive Kevin Belli, treated him with disdain.
For example, Setliff said Belli directed him to make new expense entries in internal budget documents for the fourth quarter of 2003 without any reference to the related revenue that would hit the books in 2004. When he sought to highlight these changes with a footnote, Setliff said he was rebuked by Belli.
Setliff said he was eventually told by Belli that the changes were needed to “manage earnings.”
America Online spokesman Whitney denied the allegation. “Belli never said that,” Whitney said, adding that the company would not make Belli available for an interview.
The AOL spokesman said America Online, which typically spends about $500 million a quarter on marketing, added $49 million to the marketing budget in the fourth quarter of 2003, shifting only $7 million from 2004 budget plans.
He said the firm was running ahead of projections last year and increased marketing to promote its new software and sign up customers in a tough operating environment. Whitney also said it was natural for the company, in the midst of launching AOL 9.0, to do whatever it could to make the new software offering successful.
While AOL insiders said more than half of the increase in marketing dollars in the fourth quarter was aimed at signing up new dial-up subscribers, Time Warner spokesman Adler noted that the Internet firm also has been engaged in a broad advertising effort.
“We did buy more ads and spend more on marketing,” Adler said. “You can tell that by watching the baseball playoffs, by going into Best Buy or Circuit City, or by looking at buses in New York City.”
AOL is also sponsoring the halftime show at Sunday’s Super Bowl.
The questions about the sustainability of AOL’s earnings come as the company remains the subject of extensive ongoing probes into its bookkeeping practices by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Those probes are looking at the way America Online reported its financial results before and after its merger with Time Warner in January 2002. The investigations are not examining the 2003 acceleration in marketing expenditures.
In the fall of 2002, Time Warner restated $190 million previously reported by AOL as profit. The corporation, acknowledging that AOL had overstated earnings, also disclosed that it was seeking to cooperate with federal officials and might further reduce previously reported earnings.
Time Warner is slated to release its 2003 earnings tomorrow.
Financial experts said AOL has failed to adequately explain to investors how the year-end marketing drive in 2003 could affect the underlying quality of earnings this year.
Without that, it may appear that America Online is “trying to trick people into thinking the results were better than they really were,” said Howard Schilit, chairman of the Center for Financial Research and Analysis. “It is a way for companies to create an impression that things have improved.”
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
