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January 28, 2010 11:08 AM Eastern Time
Papa John’s to Integrate Newest “Papa’s in the House” Deliveries into Super Bowl XLIV Telecast

Pizza company’s first-time NFL sponsorship to include 30-second enhancement during first half of The Big Game

LOUISVILLE, Ky.–Since NFL play began in August, Papa John’s has been “in the house” of football fans nationwide, with millions of pizzas delivered at stadiums and homes across the country. The first-time NFL sponsor will culminate the season by being in the house at The Big Game, with some special deliveries featured in a unique integration in the Super Bowl XLIV telecast on CBS on February 7.

“This year, we are excited to be in the house as the Official Pizza Sponsor of the NFL and Super Bowl XLIV, and to be able to thank the fans and those behind the scenes who make the game great.”

As the Official Pizza Sponsor of the NFL and Super Bowl XLIV, Papa John’s will be featured in the Super Bowl telecast for the first time in company history. Near the two-minute warning of the first half, Papa John’s Founder John Schnatter will be featured in a 30-second broadcast enhancement, customized and themed for Super Bowl XLIV, celebrating the people who make the NFL and Super Bowl XLIV great — the latest installment in the brand’s “Papa’s in the House” ad campaign.

“As the quality leader in the pizza category, for years football fans have invited Papa John’s to be the guest of honor at their homes while watching the Super Bowl,” said Papa John’s Chief Marketing Officer, Andrew Varga. “This year, we are excited to be in the house as the Official Pizza Sponsor of the NFL and Super Bowl XLIV, and to be able to thank the fans and those behind the scenes who make the game great.”

From now through Super Bowl XLIV, Papa John’s will have exclusive offers and deals available at www.papajohns.com, including its Super XL IV Pizza – an extra-large pizza with up to four toppings for only $11.99, and its 1st and 10 Offer – any large pizza for only $10.

Headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, Papa John’s International, Inc. (NASDAQ: PZZA) is the world’s third largest pizza company. For nine of the last 10 years, consumers have rated Papa John’s No. 1 in customer satisfaction among all national pizza chains in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Papa John’s also was honored by Restaurants & Institutions Magazine (R&I) with the 2009 Gold Award for Consumers’ Choice in Chains in the pizza segment, ranked first among pizza companies in the 2008 Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index, and was named 2007 Pizza Today Chain of the Year. For more information about the company or to order pizza online, visit Papa John’s at www.papajohns.com.

Contacts
Papa John’s International, Inc.
Tish Muldoon, 502-261-4987
Senior Director, Corporate Communications
tish_muldoon@papajohns.com
or
Fleishman-Hillard
Doug Terfehr, 314-982-9134
doug.terfehr@fleishman.com

Permalink: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100128006091/en/Papa-John%E2%80%99s-Integrate-Newest-%E2%80%9CPapa%E2%80%99s-House%E2%80%9D-Deliveries

Diamond Foods Makes Super Bowl History Featuring Two Brands in One Advertisement

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 21, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Diamond Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:DMND), announced today that it will unveil a new, groundbreaking commercial featuring two of its snack food brands —- Pop Secret(R) Popcorn and Emerald(R) Nuts —- during CBS’s coverage of Super Bowl XLIV in Miami, Florida on February 7, 2010.

The Company has a reputation for creating award-winning, memorable ads with its trademark offbeat humor and has been challenging the status quo with a strong history of energizing categories and building brands. This year is no exception.

Diamond Foods will be making a splash with its ad featuring the World’s Most Flamboyant dolphin trainer standing on top of a volcano in the middle of a marine theme park. The commercial begins with the trainer whipping the crowd into a frenzy screaming “Let’s Get Aquatic!” The ad ends with the phrase “Awesome + Awesome = Awesomer.” How this relates to popcorn and snack nuts will be revealed during the second half of the game.

“We have used Super Bowl advertising very effectively over the years to drive broad awareness and growth of our Emerald brand,” said Diamond President and Chief Executive Officer Michael J. Mendes. “This year, we are leveraging our Super Bowl investment featuring both Pop Secret Popcorn and Emerald Nuts in one ad. This reinforces the fact that Diamond has two contemporary snack food brands in its portfolio well-positioned to serve a similar consumer demographic.”

Diamond is no stranger to making memorable ads that positively impact sales having produced award winning ads that aired during Super Bowls in 2005, 2006 and 2007. In each year, the Company experienced high double digit growth in sales following those games as it built the Emerald snack food brand that it launched in 2004. This year, Diamond is sprinkling its magic on Pop Secret Popcorn, the brand it purchased in 2008 and took full control of in February 2009.

Working with San Francisco based advertising agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, Diamond has achieved a first in Super Bowl advertising featuring two distinct brands side by side in one commercial.

“We have raised the bar for ourselves and really pushed the envelope to create a unique commercial,” said Andrew Burke, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Diamond Foods. “We are excited with the results and believe we have a memorable spot that will connect with our target audience and dramatically increase our off shelf promotional displays.”

Popcorn and snack nuts are a staple at Super Bowl parties. According to a study by The Integer Group, over 6 million pounds of popcorn and snack nuts will be consumed on Super Bowl Sunday.

Diamond will be supporting the television ad with a robust marketing campaign that includes print and online advertising. The Company will run a print advertisement in USA Today and online ads the week before the Super Bowl on the websites of USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. After the Super Bowl, the Company will utilize search advertising via Google and YouTube to drive consumers to its branded websites.

Since the middle of December 2009, Diamond has been reinvigorating the Pop Secret brand with its recently launched kernel campaign featuring animated kernel characters that are passionate movie lovers actively watching popular scenes from classic movies. Andy Allcock, Pop Secret Brand Manager added, “We have been receiving very positive responses to the ads. Consumers love them.” The Company has aired over 600 spots during the campaign.

Emerald snack nuts are the fastest growing brand in the snack nut category and have grown sales dollars almost 50% over the previous year.

About Diamond Foods

Diamond Foods (NASDAQ: DMND) is a leading branded food company specializing in producing, marketing and distributing culinary nuts and snack products under the Diamond(R), Emerald(R) and Pop Secret(R) brands.

Corporate Web Site: http://www.diamondfoods.com

Consumer Web Sites: http://www.diamondnuts.com, http://www.emeraldnuts.com, http://www.popsecret.com, http://www.feedyourfingers.com

Goodby, Silverstein & Partners Web Site: http://www.goodbysilverstein.com

SOURCE: Diamond Foods, Inc.

CXO Communication
Richard Simonelli, 650-906-1022 (Media)
Managing Director
rich@cxocommunication.com
or
Diamond Foods, Inc.
Bob Philipps, 415-445-7426 (Investors)
VP, Treasury & Investor Relations
bphilipps@diamondfoods.com

via phx.corporate-ir.net

finance.yahoo.com

Historical Advertising Data Showcases Super Bowl’s Leading Spenders, Quadrupled Ad Rates and More Cluttered Air Time

|Christine Daniels

Giant carrier pigeons terrorize a towering skyscraper. Justin Timberlake is thrown onto the street and dragged into traffic. One beer drinker torches a romantic dinner with his flame-throwing breather and another gets sucked into a jet engine.

What did the creators of this year’s Super Bowl commercials know about the fate that awaited the New England Patriots in Sunday’s Super Bowl? 

Mayhem and destruction were overriding themes in the commercial barrage that was interrupted by long stretches of the Patriots spinning their wheels during the New York Giants’ 17-14 upset victory, tripping up New England’s quest for a 19-0 season at the final leg. Perfection is never the goal of these ads. Far from it. Shock value remains a popular objective, but try as these ads did, nothing plugging liquid refreshment, cars, tires or websites approached the edge-of-the-seat surprise that accompanied Eli Manning’s late touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress.

And nothing scripted by the people at CareerBuilder.com did more for the concept of career building than the Giants’ Manning.

Consider precisely what Manning accomplished with his 19-for-34, 255-yard, two-touchdown passing performance in Glendale, Ariz. He not only kept pace with the tough act carved out last year by one of the game’s greatest quarterbacks (his older brother Peyton, who defeated the Chicago Bears in 2007), but also upstaged another (Tom Brady, who had been 3-0 in Super Bowls) on the same field.

Eli was like the Clydesdale in the Budweiser commercial. One year, he’s cut from the squad. The next, he makes the grade, thanks to perseverance, faith and some unusual coaching.

(One difference between the personal-trainer Dalmatian in the commercial and Giants Coach Tom Coughlin: The Dalmatian never changed its spots. Today, however, Coughlin’s upgraded resume includes the line: Yes, he can win the big ones after all.)

It was this kind of Super Bowl: The Miami Heat (9-36) had a much better day than the Patriots. Two of the telecast’s better commercials featured members of the less-than-lukewarm Heat. Shaquille O’Neal as a late-charging, physics-defying winning jockey was the thrust of a Glaceau Vitaminwater spot. In another ad, for T-Mobile, viewers suffered along with Dwyane Wade as he was pestered by never-ending phone calls from Charles Barkley.

via articles.latimes.com

Peter Hartlaub, Chronicle Pop Culture Critic

This was the eighth Super Bowl of the 21st century, but if you were only paying attention to the commercials, you might have thought it was the 1970s, ’80s or ’90s.

It wasn’t just older themes that played during the between-plays breaks in Super Bowl XLII, such as Budweiser’s Dalmatians and Clydesdales, which have been commercial stars during the big game for decades. Sunday’s Super Bowl ads also referred to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” the Andrea True disco song “More, More, More” and the “Saturday Night Live” skit that led to the 1998 movie “A Night at the Roxbury.” And that was just in the first half.

Nostalgia was definitely the way to go for many of the top advertising agencies that handled the multimillion-dollar accounts for Super Bowl regulars such as Anheuser-Busch, Coke and Pepsi – and newcomers including Tide. But it was also part of a general theme of playing it safe that was pervasive this year. After Janet Jackson’s exposed nipple shocked the world in 2004 and Budweiser featured a chainsaw-wielding madman in 2007, this year’s ads were almost all fun and fit for the family.

“Less brave. No risk,” wrote Publicis US advertising executive Bob Moore, who was live blogging on SuperAdFreak.com. “More talking animals.”

As for the quality, it was a decent year, with several memorable ads and only a couple of catastrophes, including some Chinese stereotype pandas for a Salesgenie.com commercial that seems most likely to result in the first Super Bowl ad apology of the season. (Or maybe not. A Salesgenie exec boasted that his commercials were intentionally bad. In this game, some companies want negative attention.)

Around the blogosphere, the public seemed to be split, with many of the armchair critics acting underwhelmed with the output – while several experts who write about the advertising world suggested it was a pretty good year.

Standouts included a nostalgia-saturated Coke commercial, where giant parade balloons of Underdog and “Family Guy” baby Stewie duke it out over New York for an inflatable bottle of Coke, before it gets swiped by a Charlie Brown balloon. (The special effects were seamless – and after losing the football all those years, it was cathartic to see Chuck come out ahead.) A Tide ad with a talking stain was short, cute and memorable, as was Justin Timberlake getting dragged all over the city for Diet Pepsi Max.

But while the critics like style, the masses often go for the lowest common denominator. Planters Nuts will likely have a fan favorite with its commercial that focuses on a homely girl with a unibrow – who uses cashews as a perfume. And for the second time in four years, a Bud Light advertisement ended with a guy’s date getting torched by fire. At least this time the culprit wasn’t a flatulent horse.

This was also the year for late finishers, which seemed at times to match the thrilling come-from-behind 17-14 victory by the New York Giants. The Coke parade-balloons commercial came at the start of the fourth quarter, which is often a dumping ground for advertisements. And Amp energy drink may have stolen the show with a shirtless overweight guy who hooks up battery cables to his nipples and jump-starts a truck.

That was arguably the raciest ad of the afternoon, and even it had an element of nostalgia – with the Amp guy dancing to the 1986 Salt-n-Pepa song “Push It.” Other music from the past included the 1979 song “Escape (The Pina Colada song)” and “Thriller” from 1984, which featured lizards mimicking the choreography from that song’s video. (Which would have been a hit if we hadn’t all seen the same idea executed better in last year’s viral YouTube video of prisoners in the Philippines doing the same dance.)

The songs weren’t the only blasts from the past. Among the older movies that inspired ads were “The Godfather” for Audi – complete with a cameo by actor Alex Rocco, who played Moe Greene in the movie – and the “Night at the Roxbury” skit for Pepsi, with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo by original head-bobber Chris Kattan. There were also a couple of talking baby ads, which seemed left over from the Baby Bob commercials from the dotcom era.

On the SFGate Culture Blog, where readers were commenting on a live blog of the advertisements, opinions of the quality of the 2008 ads seemed split between good and bad, sometimes in the same post.

“I agree Salesgenie ads were shameful and the baby ads were creepy beyond belief,” posted one viewer. “Can’t believe so much money was wasted. The pigeon ad and Pepsi max bopping heads were funny though.”

And with the game remaining interesting until the final seconds, for once the advertisements didn’t even have a chance of stealing the show.

“Wow,” wrote another poster. “For the first time in many years the game is more interesting than the commercials!”

 

– To read comments about the Super Bowl commercials, go to the Culture Blog at sfgate.com.

 

The memorable and the squirm-inducing

Three best ads

1. Coke parade balloons: Three cartoon character parade balloons float over New York and fight it out for a bottle of Coke, with Charlie Brown coming out ahead. The visuals were great, it was very sweet and people will remember the product.

2. FedEx pigeons: The competition still delivers packages with carrier pigeons, including some that have Terminator-style cyborg eyesight (yet another 1980s reference) and other giant ones that can throw a car through a window. Very funny and clever.

3. Tide “My Talking Stain”: A job applicant gives his credentials, but all the interviewer can focus on is the gibberish-talking stain on his shirt. This was Tide’s first ad and it hit it out of the park, with something understated and memorable that tied in well to the brand.

Three worst ads

1. Salesgenie.com talking panda: A cartoon panda speaks in a Chinese accent that even Rosie O’Donnell would find offensive – which apparently was all part of the plan to prove that bad publicity is better than none.

2. GoDaddy.com Danica Patrick: GoDaddy once again plays the “we’re-so-controversial-we-got-banned” card, directing viewers to its Web site to see the company’s rejected ad. That commercial is very lame, adding little to the “beaver” joke from “The Naked Gun” while failing in its tease to show Patrick in something skimpy.

3. Doritos “Message from Your Heart”: If we wanted to see some singer we’ve never heard of playing an acoustic guitar, we’d skip the Super Bowl and go to a local coffee shop. Doritos is generally solid, but this was a miss.

- Peter Hartlaub

Online resources

To see all the Super Bowl ads: www.myspace.com/superbowlads

 

To read what other viewers had to say about the Super Bowl commercials, go to the Culture Blog on www.sfgate.com

 

Ranking Super Bowl ads

BEST: Coca-Cola’s commercial featured a tussle between cartoon character balloons.

WORST: Salesgenie.com’s Chinese stereotype pandas should prompt an apology.

via sfgate.com

Anheuser-Busch’s Clydesdales and Bridgestone Tires score with viewers. Salesgenie and GM fail to impress.

By Ben Rooney, CNNMoney.com staff writer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The New York Giants’ victory over the New England Patriots Sunday night was one of the biggest upsets in Super Bowl history, but the advertising effort during the big game was not quite as inspiring.

“We had a mixed bag of commercials this year. Some were really strong and some hard to follow,” said Tim Calkins, a clinical professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

According to preliminary results from Adbowl, a Web site that polls opinions of Super Bowl ads, Anheuser-Busch’s (BUD, Fortune 500) Budweiser commercial featuring one of the brewer’s trademark Clydesdales being “trained” by a Dalmatian came in as the most popular.

Bridgestone Firestone also fared well, according to Spotbowl, another Web site dedicated to ranking Super Bowl ads. The tiremaker was ranked first, with an ad about tires avoiding a squirrel in the road, and fifth, with an ad about tires avoiding fitness guru Richard Simmons and singer Alice Cooper, on the site’s list of top spots early Monday.

The stakes couldn’t have been higher for companies advertising in this year’s big game. The average cost for one 30-second spot during Super Bowl XLII was $2.7 million, according to Fox, the News Corp (NWS.A).-owned network that broadcast the Super Bowl.

But the sheer number of people watching the Super Bowl can make the investment worthwhile if the ad is effective at capturing people’s attention. Last year, the big game was the highest rated TV show in the U.S. with more than 93 million people tuning in, according to Nielsen

Automakers Hyundai and General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) both ranked near the bottom of Spotbowl’s list.

SalesGenie.com’s ad was among the least effective Super Bowl ads, according to Calkins. The online provider of sales leads and mailing lists aired a commercial that was widely regarded as the worst of last year’s Super Bowl ads.

Several advertising experts said that Procter & Gamble’s (PG, Fortune 500) Tide commercial featuring a “talking stain” was an unexpected success.

“Normally the big packaged goods companies don’t get what the Super Bowl is about,” said Steve McKee, president of McKee Wallwork Cleveland Advertising.

Anheuser-Busch, which purchased the most advertising time this year, scored with the Clydesdale ad. But the brewer did not dominate the post-game advertising polls the way it normally does and several advertising experts said the brewer’s commercials were formulaic and predictable.

When it comes to cross-platform advertising, or Internet tie-ins, Go Daddy was one of the most effective. The Internet domain name company, which has developed a reputation for pushing risqu� ads, produced a spot called “Exposure” that Fox deemed inappropriate. Go Daddy decided to use its 30-second Super Bowl spot to inform viewers that “Exposure” was posted on its Web site. 

By David Hinckley
DAILY NEWS CULTURE CRITIC

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.

by Joshua Stylman
While football fans everywhere are gathering essential game-day provisions, advertisers are preparing for the biggest media event of the year. With the writers’ strike digging into network ratings, this year’s Super Bowl is more important than ever, as it virtually guarantees advertisers a gargantuan audience – the prospect of which has once again compelled the big spenders to pony up an average of $2.7 million for 30 seconds of air time.

More than any previous year, Super Bowl XLII presents a huge opportunity for advertisers to get the most out of their TV campaigns by treating them as part of a bigger, integrated, cross-channel initiative.

Of the 90 million people who watched last year’s Super Bowl, nearly 18 million – almost 20% – went online to get more information about the ads. Considering that 80% of online sessions start at a search engine, it is crucially important to integrate TV ads into a broader search engine marketing campaign. We’ve monitored the best and worst advertiser performances over the past few years, and have ripped some pages out of our playbook for 2008′s big spenders:

1. Tell viewers where to go, and give them a reason to go there.

Every Super Bowl ad should feature a visibly and audibly prominent URL and a clear and compelling call-to-action. It seems obvious, but is worth stating: marketers must provide direction and incentive to get people interacting with their brands online. Years past have shown that advertisers often drop the ball on this one — nearly one in five ads in the 2007 Super Bowl failed to include a URL, and a whopping 90% lacked a call-to-action. In contrast, Sales Genie, a first time advertiser, prominently featured a URL and a special offer in its ad and drew more than 10,000 online registrations as a result.

2. Make yourself easy to find and to recognize.

Of the 80% of people who begin at the search box, more than 68% never move beyond the first page of results. For Super Bowl advertisers, appearing on the first page of results determines whether consumers ultimately end up at your site or your competitor’s. Smart advertisers will not only buy search ads for brand and Super Bowl related keywords, but they’ll optimize their websites with the same key terms, to ensure that they appear in multiple places on the first page. What’s more, advertisers need to maintain consistent messaging across channels so people recognize online what they saw on TV. This increases the likelihood that viewers will click through an ad and engage with the site.

In 2007, nearly all the advertisers appeared in organic results for their own brand names. But only a quarter of them bid on Super Bowl keywords, squandering their chance to reach eager searchers with a timely, coordinated paid search message.

3. Engage people where they already spend time online.

Both MySpace and YouTube have seen exponential growth over the last few years, and this year they are hosting ads for free on their respective Super Bowl “channels”. Super Bowl advertisers can take advantage of these social hubs by optimizing their own profile pages, uploading ads right after they’ve aired, adding keyword tags to make videos easy to find, allowing users to share and embed videos, and cross-linking back to their own sites. Advertisers should also make sure they capitalize on any pre-Super Bowl buzz during and after the game.

In 2007, Doritos launched a “Crash the Super Bowl” video contest that allowed users to submit original ads that would be aired on game day. By soliciting consumer-generated videos across multiple social media profiles, Doritos built awareness and community in advance of the game. Unfortunately, Doritos fumbled their contest site design, didn’t properly cross-link their social media profiles and neglected to run paid search ads. Though they did receive a good amount of traffic, they could have done more to maximize it.

In sum, this year’s Super Bowl advertisers should not count on just the thirty seconds of viewer attention for which they’ve paid so dearly. It takes a lot longer than half a minute to meaningfully engage a potential customer, and advertisers have the chance to extend that time online. Now we’ll just have to wait and see which of the big players heed our advice to score touchdowns online, and which ones fumble.
via mediapost.com

By David Sweet
NBCSports.com contributor

A few weeks back, Under Armour shares were pummeled after the company announced advertising buys that would hamper earnings, including a commercial during Super Bowl XLII costing about $5 million. After last year’s game, Garmin received publicity for its Super Bowl spot — the wrong kind. Northwestern University’s Kellogg School named Garmin’s commercial (which cost $2.4 million to buy) the worst among scores of Super Bowl ads broadcast.

Despite all the hype about their creativity and an ability to reach television’s largest audience (93 million viewers) annually, Super Bowl commercials are risky ventures. Millions of dollars are dropped in less time than breaks between NFL plays, and the result may be viewers’ yawns and media pans. Which makes one wonder: Considering all the major sporting events during the year, isn’t there a better way for companies to spend their ad money?

True, certain sports events don’t really lend themselves to commercial buys. For instance, the Kentucky Derby on ABC draws nearly 14 million viewers, but it lasts only two minutes and no spots appear during the horse race. In golf, The Masters — broadcast by CBS — limits commercials to a handful of sponsors.

But other marquee matchups offer solid opportunities. During the 2007 World Series sweep of Colorado by Boston, Fox received about $400,000 for each 30-second commercial and attracted roughly 17 million viewers per game, a better deal than the Super Bowl in terms of cost per viewer. The upcoming Daytona 500 is drawing about $550,000 to $575,000 for each 30-second commercial, with close to 20 million viewers likely for the Fox broadcast, again a better bargain. How about a major PGA Tour event, where the average price for a 30-second spot is less than $200,000 and companies can reach the coveted male demographic with six-figure incomes? Spreading millions of dollars across half a dozen other major games, races and the like can make more sense.

The unrivaled exposure of Super Bowl ads means a commercial that alienates can heavily damage the sponsoring company. In the past decade, ads have been lambasted for being everything from racist to homophobic to inappropriate. Particularly at risk is a company making its advertising debut during the game in hopes of establishing a national reputation. It can be battered if the commercial lands short of the standard that has been established. And the high stakes of the event mean agencies can take the fall for a bad ad. For instance, Cramer-Krasselt resigned from the CareerBuilder account after last year’s ads failed to make USA Today’s Top 10 Super Bowl commercials.

Not only are Super Bowl ads expensive to purchase, they are often pricey to produce. Audi told USA Today it paid anywhere from $500,000-$1.5 million just for the right to use “The Godfather” imagery in this year’s ad. Anheuser-Busch shoots more than twice as many commercials as it uses and then spends money to test them in focus groups around the U.S. Well-known celebrities who appear in Super Bowl ads, such as Justin Timberlake and Carmen Electra, demand a premium fee.

The Super Bowl hasn’t always been the ad showcase it is today. The Apple commercial “1984” a quarter-century ago helped focus viewers’ attention on the spots. According to Michael MacCambridge, author of “America’s Game” about how pro football became the country’s most popular sport, the Super Bowl game in Pasadena 15 years ago changed everything.

”I think Super Bowl commercials became more prominent around the time that the NFL decided to add A-list pop stars to the halftime entertainment — with Michael Jackson performing at Super Bowl XXVII in 1993,” he said. “Emphasizing the halftime show ensured that the game would transcend sports; it took the largest TV audience of the year, and made it even broader and younger, setting the stage for commercials that would make news on their own terms.”

Companies such as Anheuser-Busch — which buys so many commercials every year that it pays only about $2 million for each 30-second spot — have become synonymous with the Super Bowl. Because of its over-the-top Super Bowl presence, the brewer has earned value just from the fact many fans assume Budweiser is the official beer sponsor of the NFL (it’s not — Coors is). And in the day of the Internet, ads will be watched online millions of times after the game, so their life, and thus impact, is seemingly limitless today.

Still, Super Bowl ads are a roll of the dice. And, if God forbid a game breaks out between the ads, and Eli Manning throws a last-second touchdown pass to shatter a New England perfect season, who’s going to talk about a Kraft commercial the next day? Spreading the risk among a number of prime sporting events may be the smarter move.

via msnbc.msn.com

By Theresa Howard, USA TODAY
NEW YORK — The Super Bowl battle of beverages between PepsiCo (PEP) and Coca-Cola (KO) will feature ads for their growing non-carbonated drinks.

Coke will make its biggest appearance in recent years with three minutes of ad time that includes one with NBA star Shaquille O’Neal for Vitaminwater. Pepsi’s lineup will include promotion for a low-calorie Gatorade called G2, featuring New York Yankee Derek Jeter. Pepsi also is expected to run ads for energy drink Amp and SoBe LifeWater.

Backing such new-generation drinks with ad time costing up to $2.7 million for 30 seconds reflects the hot competition in sports, energy and enhanced water drinks and how the beverage giants are looking to them for sales growth.

“It’s the right thing to do, because it’s what people are drinking today,” says Rohan Oza, Glacéau senior vice president, marketing. “We’re excited to have what we think is our biggest ad to date on the biggest stage in the world with one of the greatest players in NBA history.”

According to trade journal Beverage Digest, enhanced and fortified water sales rose 32% in the first nine months of 2007, energy drinks rose 38% and sports drinks rose 2%, Meanwhile, carbonated drinks shrank 6% in the period.

O’Neal, a Vitaminwater drinker, came up with the idea to be a jockey in a Super Bowl ad after hearing that Glacéau founder Mike Repole owned horses. He thinks he’ll win the race for ad impact with the more than 90 million viewers expected.

“I’m a big fan of Super Bowl, and I’m a bigger fan of the commercials,” O’Neal said in a phone interview from Miami. “I put my house on the line that people are going to remember a 7-1, 321-pound basketball player riding a horse.”

O’Neal actually rides the horse (with a few shots using some effects) and wins because Vitaminwater Power-C gives him energy. Rival Gatorade is called “Old Man Gator” by the race announcer.

“People are always going to have their favorite beverage,” O’Neal says. “But when it comes to marketing, we can be more edgy than other companies.”

Coke also will advertise Coke Classic with at least one 60-second ad in which parade mascots battle over a Coke. It is considering a Coke ad featuring former GOP Senate leader Bill Frist and Democratic operative James Carville. Coke Zero also may get an ad.

By Tony Natale
Tribune

Another dispute between Scottsdale’s Go Daddy Group and Fox television over a Super Bowl XLII commercial is over, although Bob Parsons, owner and founder of the world’s largest domain name registrar, is not very happy about it.

“I’m disappointed the network won’t approve another (rejected) commercial,” said Parsons, whose company has more than 26 million domain names. “It’s hilarious.”

Parsons will pay $2.7 million – $100,000 more than last year – to air a 30-second commercial titled “Spot On” featuring several actors, including Indy race car driver and Go Daddy Girl Danica Patrick, during the game Feb. 3.

The commercial for GoDaddy.com was approved by Fox after the network rejected 10 earlier submissions, Parsons said Thursday.

One of those rejected, titled “Exposure,” featured Patrick and included a robotic beaver.

Fox requested that the word “beaver” be removed, but Parsons said he refused.

“I think ‘Exposure’ is the funniest commercial we’ve ever made,” said Parsons.

He would not elaborate, but said the commercial “spoofs a certain pop culture celebrity phenomenon.”

Last year, Go Daddy paid $2.6 million to CBS for 30 seconds of airtime during the 2007 Super Bowl after several of its initially submitted commercials were also turned down.

The pattern of submission, rejection and final approval began in 2005 with Go Daddy’s first Super Bowl commercial, a parody on censorship involving a scantily clad model and a wardrobe malfunction, a snapped bra strap, that was yanked by Fox after its first airing.

The network’s censorship resulted in massive publicity for Scottsdale-based-Go Daddy as well as huge profits.

The company’s market share grew from 16 percent to 25 percent after the removal, the company said.

Go Daddy’s market share rose to 32 percent in 2006 and is at 42 percent of the world’s domain name market, according to the company.
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EAU CLAIRE, Wis./PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The aggregate stock price of publicly traded firms that ran in-game Super Bowl advertisements beat the Standard & Poors 500 performance in 10 of the last 12 years, according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. “During the week before and the week after the 1996-2007 Super Bowls, the stocks of companies that ran in-game ads outperformed the S&P stocks by nearly 1.3 percent,” said Dr. Chuck Tomkovick, a marketing professor who has conducted Super Bowl advertising research for a decade. “In essence, Wall Street rewards firms that run Super Bowl ads. It’s a tradeable event.” If an investor bought every publicly traded Super Bowl stock in the last 12 years on the Monday before the Super Bowl and sold them five days after the game, the investor would be up by nearly 1.3 percent over the S&P 500 during that same time period, Tomkovick said. Given the large market caps involved, an increase of nearly 1.3 percent over the S&P 500 translates into billions of dollars of stock price improvement for those holding these investments, Tomkovick said. In the best of the 12 years, Super Bowl stocks beat S&P 500 by 4.5 percent. In the worst years, S&P 500 beat Super Bowl stocks by 0.33 percent, Tomkovick said. Most Super Bowl advertising research has focused on the likeability of the ads rather than on financial factors, said Dr. Rama Yelkur, a marketing professor and Tomkovick’s research partner. “This study examines the financial performance of firms that invest in Super Bowl ads and demonstrates there is a net positive effect, regardless of how likeable the ads were scored,” Yelkur said. In six of the 12 years, the bottom ad likeability Super Bowl stocks outperformed the top ad likeability Super Bowl stocks, Yelkur said. The researchers noted that while the results indicate a positive association exists between Super Bowl advertising investment and the financial performance of the firms that run them, it does not suggest causation. A full news release is available at: http://www.uwec.edu/newsreleases/08/jan/0124SuperBowl2008.htm.

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