Superbowl-ads.com Article Archive

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6895297/

After backlash, marketers plan to rein in the raunch

By Martin Wolk MSNBC

Last year’s Super Bowl is best remembered for Janet Jackson’s halftime ‘wardrobe malfunction,’ but the singer’s accidental overexposure was hardly the event’s only breach of good taste.

The CBS broadcast of the showdown between the New England Patriots and Carolina Panthers also was marred by a crop of unusually weak and offensive advertising that featured a flatulent horse, several crotch jokes and suggestive commercials for rival brands of erection pills.

Advertising on this year’s broadcast is likely to be toned down a bit as marketers and executives from this year’s broadcaster, Fox, aim to avoid a backlash from family-oriented media watchdogs and tough-talking federal regulators.

‘Marketers seem to understand the mood of the country with regard to what is tasteful and what is not,’ said Lou D’Ermilio, spokesman for Fox Sports Net.

Outgoing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell made last year’s halftime show Exhibit A in his campaign against on-air indecency, and the agency fined CBS parent Viacom Inc. $550,000 for the brief depiction of Jackson’s bare breast.

Viacom is contesting the fine, but advertisers and marketers have gotten the message, said Jeff Goodby, whose ad agency was responsible for last year’s incendiary horse and is working on several commercials for this year’s game.

‘This year, I think most advertisers are going to be incredibly well-behaved,’ he told The Associated Press.’ ‘Everybody knows where the line is, and I don’t think it will be crossed.’

Fox has rejected at least two ads including one that depicted 84-year-old actor Mickey Rooney’s naked rear end. The rejected spot, which promoted a cold remedy, showed Rooney’s towel falling off as he fled a sauna when someone coughed.

Another ad that failed to make the cut suggested a possible cause for last year’s infamous costume breakdown. The ad, which was killed by Anheuser-Busch, showed a beer drinker backstage at last year’s Super Bowl unwittingly using Jackson’s dress to open a bottle of beer.

For advertisers, who are paying $80,000 a second for air time, the stakes are as high as for the players on the field. The Super Bowl is the most watched broadcast of the year, and the only one where millions tune in specifically to see the commercials.

Here is a preview of some of the advertising slated to run during Super Bowl XXXIX Sunday:

Food and drink Anheuser-Busch is by far the Super Bowl’s biggest sponsor with a total of five minutes of commercial airtime valued at $24 million before discounts. The beer giant has not disclosed its exact plans but has previewed one ad showing its famed Clydesdales having a snowball fight and another featuring a beer robot.

Longtime Super Bowl advertiser Frito-Lay will debut a 30-second commercial directed by Spike Lee that tells the story of a grumpy neighbor who refuses to return a kids’ ball thrown over the fence. Once softened up by a bag of potato chips, he not only returns the ball but tosses back a number of items that have been missing, including a pet dog, a 1972 Chevy Impala and rap music pioneer MC Hammer.

Subway has bought a fourth-quarter time slot to promote its new Fresh Toasted Subs ‘ without the chain’s well-worn spokesman Jared. The humorous 30-second spot shows two police officers approaching a vehicle parked at a romantic spot, but what they find inside is something surprising.

Emerald of California, hoping to get snack-minded viewers to think beyond chips, will launch a humorous campaign for its new brand of snack nuts.

McIlhenney Co. returns to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1998 to promote its Tabasco brand hot sauce with an ad called ‘tan lines’ that will feature a model in a halter top.

Pepsi-Cola, the No. 2 advertiser in the big game with two and a half minutes of air time, will be appearing in its 20th consecutive Super Bowl. The beverage marketer has not yet disclosed its plans for this year’s game.

Cars and trucks Anyone who thinks America’s love affair with sporty trucks is waning should tune in Sunday.

Ford’s Lincoln division will use the game to launch its Mark LT, a pickup truck that comes with heated leather seats and a $40,000 base sticker price. The Lincoln ad, on the theme of temptation, focuses on a clergyman who finds the keys to a new truck in the collection plate.

Volvo will counter with an astronaut themed-ad for its new XC 90, a sport-utility vehicle powered by the company’s first V-8 engine. It is the first Super Bowl spot for Volvo.

Honda will launch a national campaign for its first pickup truck, the Ridgeline, with two 30-second spots.

General Motors will offer a 60-second ad titled ‘Barrels’ that shows off its Cadillac V-Series performance cars, including the forthcoming XLR-V compact convertible.’ GM also will broadcast two unusual commercials before and after the game, each of which will last just five seconds ‘ the time it takes for a V-Series Cadillac to go from 0 to 60 mph.

The silver screen Movies have become a huge product category for the Super Bowl and could account for three or four minutes of the precious 30 minutes of national air time available during the big game.

One possible reason’ Super Bowl movie ads seem to really work. One recent study found that movies promoted during the Super Bowl and released within the next seven months took in 40 percent more in ticket sales than other comparable movies.

“They may not talk about the ads around the water cooler Monday, but they have an impact on the target market that is interested in the movie,” said Chuck Tomkovick, a marketing professor at the University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire and lead author of the study.

Among the movies to be featured in this year’s game is ‘The Pacifier,’ a comedy with action-movie star Vin Diesel as a Navy SEAL assigned to protect a suburban family. Other movies expected to make a showing include ‘Hitch,’ a romantic comedy starring Will Smith, and two remakes ‘The Longest Yard’ with Adam Sandler and ‘War of the Worlds’ directed by Steven Spielberg.

Business and consumer services Talking about money can be such a downer in the party atmosphere of the Super Bowl, so first-time sponsor Ameriquest Mortgage will avoid specifics and try to engage viewers with humor.

Ameriquest will offer two 30-second spots with the tagline ‘Don’t judge,’ featuring people whose actions get misinterpreted, including a man cooking a surprise dinner for his girlfriend and a customer shopping at a store. The company also is sponsoring the halftime show featuring Paul McCartney.

CareerBuilder.com will broadcast two 30-second spots about people who could use the online job listing service because they work with chimpanzees ‘ literally. GoDaddy.com, which sells Internet domain names, is courting controversy with a humorous ad depicting an attractive young woman testifying before a censorship committee in Salem, Mass. The ad will appear twice after Fox rejected a second, more risqu’ ad from GoDaddy.

MBNA, which provides affinity credit cards for thousands of organizations, will step out of the shadows to launch a brand awareness campaign. FedEx plans a 45-second spot starring Burt Reynolds on behalf of its FedEx Kinko’s Office and Print Services.

Also appearing Cialis is back with a 60-second ad showing mature couple snuggling to the 1963 hit tune “Be My Baby” by The Ronettes. Olympus returns to the Super Bowl for the first time in 24 years to promote a new digital music player with a built-in camera, the m:robe 500.

Unilever will launch a campaign for a new line of deodorant for men that features dolls dubbed “In-Action Heroes.” The deliberately low-tech spot shows a Mama’s Boy doll that never sweats because he never takes risks.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050201/phtu025_1.html

Press Release Source: Eisner Communications

Little Backlash from Wardrobe Malfunction, Little Interest in Rooney’s Butt

BALTIMORE /PRNewswire/ — Only seven percent (7%) of U.S. adults will watch Super Bowl XXXIX just to watch the commercials according to the annual Eisner Communications Super Bowl Ad Survey of 1,000 U.S. adults (http://www.eisner-communications.com/superbowlads) released today – down 2% from last year, and the lowest number who report they are tuning in just to watch the ads in years.

According to Eisner’s Senior Vice President, David Blum, “What we may be seeing is viewers lowering expectations about the commercials in light of extensive publicity on how docile the game, the halftime show and the ads will be this year rather than specific backlash from the infamous wardrobe malfunction incident.”

In fact, the Eisner Communications Survey shows that the number of adults who are less likely to watch the game because of the Jackson incident (17%) is offset by the number who report they are more likely to watch this year’s broadcast (15%). Not surprisingly, most of those more likely to watch are men, while females constitute the majority of those less likely to tune in.

Likewise, other well-publicized incidents such as the NBA brawl in Detroit, the Terrell Owens/Desperate Housewives Monday Night Football promotion look to have little effect on probable Super Bowl and Super Bowl advertising viewership. “While these situations generated tremendous attention and media hype, the attention has not affected the consumer’s desire to watch the country’s premier spectacle and sporting event,” Blum remarked.

Mickey’s Tail

Almost thirty percent (29%) of the adult population has heard about Airborne’s cold remedy commercial that was rejected by Fox Television for the Super Bowl because it shows a naked backside of Mickey Rooney for 2-3 seconds. Interestingly, only 35% of those who have heard about it want to see it. Of those 69% who had not heard about the ad, a whopping 79% did not want to see the commercial.

“Whether they want to see an 80-year-old’s naked butt is immaterial,” Blum commented, “without spending the $2.4 million to run the spot in the Super Bowl they reached half the audience that would have tuned in with the publicity the rejected ad has generated.” Key 2005 Survey Findings/Information * 33% of adults will watch the big game because they always do – the highest number ever recorded. 8% have a rooting interest in either team or the match-up, obviously concentrated in the northeastern U.S. * 15% will watch for a chance to get with friends and relatives, up slightly from 2004. * About half of those watching expect to catch most or all of the halftime extravaganza. 13% said they would watch counter programming, 25% will tune out until the beginning of the second half and 14% will watch only a small portion of Paul McCartney and Company.

The 2005 Eisner Super Bowl Advertising Study was conducted among 1,000 households nationwide and has a +/-3.5% margin of error. It is the 12th year of the study.

Additional Information from Previous Eisner Surveys * In terms of where Americans plan to watch the big game, only 10% of those who will watch expect to attend or host a Super Bowl party. Just 3% will watch at a bar, tavern or restaurant. The majority will watch in their own home alone, or with a few friends or family. * About half of adults will watch some of the pre-game festivities, but only 25% expect to pay attention to the ads during the 4-hour-plus pre-game show. * 45% will continue to watch the game and the ads even if it is a blowout. 8% will continue watching the ads and not the game, 35% will start channel surfing, and 9% will drop out completely. * 35% expect they will discuss Super Bowl ads at the water cooler the next day and 18% will still think about them all week. 21% say they will forget them all very soon after watching.

2005 Super Bowl Advertisers * 2005 advertisers paying an average of $2.4 million to Fox for thirty seconds include: Anheuser-Busch (various brands), Visa, Ameriquest Mortgage, FedEx, Frito-Lay, Pepsi (various brands), McDonald’s, Cadillac and several movie studios. Newcomers include: Careerbuilder.com, Emerald Nuts, Godaddy.com and Cosentino.

About Eisner Communications: (http://www.eisner-communications.com) Eisner is a full-service, integrated communications agency headquartered in Baltimore, with a 150-person staff. Eisner ranks among the top 10 independent agencies in the country today. Eisner’s year-end 2004 billings are $327 million. Now in its 65th year, the firm specializes in the creation and promotion of brand identity through integrated communications.

Source: Eisner Communications

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=7414083

By Michele Gershberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Call it the ripple effect, or the nipple effect, but Super Bowl advertisers have eased off the hoopla ahead of the National Football League championship game this year following an indecency scandal last year.

Less than two weeks before the big U.S. game on Feb. 6, few advertisers have trumpeted their plans for U.S. television’s most watched commercial venue — and, at $2.4 million per 30-second spot, the most expensive.

Many were sobered by a viewer outcry after the 2004 Super Bowl, when singer Janet Jackson bared a breast while performing in the halftime show. The incident prompted an indecency crackdown by federal regulators.

“There may be some caution in the air now based on what happened at halftime last year,” Bob Scarpelli, U.S. chief creative officer at the DDB ad agency, told Reuters. “Marketers are being cautious in terms of what they’re going to run and also how it is talked about in the press.”

The backlash engulfed the more off-color commercials during last year’s game, including a flatulent horse in an ad for brewer Anheuser-Busch and a breezy peek up a bagpipe player’s kilt for Sierra Mist soda.

As a result, some advertisers may actually prefer to wait this time and let the commercials do the talking.

“Larger advertisers have been burned in the past by over-hyping what turned out to be rather bad or at least unpopular ads,” said brand expert Mark DiMassimo.

Marketing executives say they are aiming for smiles, not outrage. Several childhood icons will even tout products this year, including Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny in ads for Emerald of California snack nuts.

Novartis AG’s CIBA Vision will debut a Super Bowl spot aimed at women consumers for its newest contact lens. The ad has lens-wearers exchanging flirtatious, but not racy, glances.

“It is very appealing to both men and women, delivered tastefully — and I will underscore that,” said Karen Gough, CIBA Vision’s president of the Americas. “I think it’s safe to say the Super Bowl this year will be a much more appropriate venue for advertisers.”

Marketers may have also hesitated to talk up ads in the weeks after a Dec. 26 tsunami in south Asia that killed more than 200,000 people, eliciting a global outpouring of sympathy and pledges of aid. Advertisers responded with similar caution after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. Continued …

In addition, notably absent this year are marketing battles played up by the media in the weeks before the 2004 Super Bowl. These included the launch of rival erectile dysfunction drugs to Pfizer’s Viagra, an internal ad contest at Procter & Gamble and a campaign against illegal music downloading.

DDB AGENCY TOPS WITH SPOTS

But Scarpelli and other ad executives say the appetite for entertainment and surprise remains strong. Super Bowl hype could yet build in the final stretch before the game.

“There’s going to be more of a carefulness not to be insensitive, but I think people really need entertainment and laughter during very tough times,” said David Lubars, chief creative officer at BBDO North America. The agency is preparing in-game spots for clients like Visa and FedEx Corp .

“I think it will be funny,” he said. “Last year there was an unintentional trend. But that doesn’t mean they (advertisers) aren’t going to try and do something provocative or stand out, because it is the biggest stage.”

Omnicom Group’s DDB is working on as many as 10 commercials aimed at the Super Bowl, to be broadcast from Jacksonville, Florida, by the Fox television network.

That would make DDB — bolstered by perennial Super Bowl marketers like Anheuser-Busch and new forays by McDonald’s, AmeriQuest and Tabasco — the agency with the largest number of Super Bowl spots, a place often claimed by sister agency BBDO.

One Super Bowl preview comes from General Motors Corp.’s Cadillac division, which already launched 5-second commercial teasers ahead of the big game. The ads playfully feature the accelerating power of its V-Series cars, which can speed from zero to 60 miles per hour in under five seconds.

“There’s a little bit of a smile in them, what we call our intelligent wit,” said Cadillac marketing director Jay Spenchian.

http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0501/24/A01-68309.htm

They spend millions on pregame, postgame and in between, while Chrysler sits it out.

By Nick Bunkley / The Detroit News

NFL playoff ads, which also will air during the Super Bowl, hype three Cadillacs that can accelerate to 60 mph in less than five seconds, including the STS-V.

A year before the Motor City plays host to football’s biggest spectacle, two of Detroit’s Big Three automakers are giving next month’s Super Bowl broadcast an unmistakably hometown flair, spending millions to be a part of the only TV event where commercials can steal the show.

Sandwiched between the Ford Fox NFL Pregame Show and the Cadillac-sponsored postgame wrap-up is a sporting event that is as much a marketing extravaganza as it is a game. Advertisers have the opportunity to reach more than 1 billion people worldwide.

In addition to their sponsorships, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp.’s Cadillac division have snatched up commercial time at a cost of nearly $5 million a minute. Honda Motor Co. bought two 30-second ads to promote its new Ridgeline pickup.

“There has never been a Super Bowl with three automakers running at least 60 seconds of ads,” said University of Detroit Mercy marketing professor Michael Bernacchi. “This really is revving it up for next Super Bowl.”

Ford created two 60-second spots for the Feb. 6 game: a pregame ad for its pickups and one touting the new Mustang convertible that might run in the first half.

Officials aren’t revealing the visual punch line of the Mustang ad, which is based in part on the dark 1996 comedy “Fargo,” but it features a convertible with the top down at a snowy intersection.

A police officer goes to check on the driver when the car doesn’t move after the traffic light turns green.

The ad implies that the driver enjoys his Mustang so much, he’ll take it out in frigid weather. It also says that the car won’t be ready for showrooms until spring.

“To be memorable among the other Super Bowl ads, we knew we had to be very, very interesting with some unexpected twist,” said Ford Division general marketing manager Marty Collins.

“We shot the Mustang convertible spot up in a northern location on a day when the temperature was zero and the wind chill was 50 below,” Collins said.

“That’s certainly an unexpected environment for the debut of a convertible sports car.”

With at least six different car commercials running during the game, each company is hoping to make its ad stand out from the rest. Lincoln claims the ad for its new Mark LT pickup will be “edgy,” while Volvo promises a spot that’s one-of-a-kind, without providing details.

“I can say that we will do something that no one’s ever done before,” said Volvo spokesman John Maloney.

It remains to be seen how advertisers will respond to criticism surrounding several risque ads and Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” at halftime last year. Experts predict most ads will be fairly tame, but a few companies might push the envelope to get more attention. The Fox network has rejected an ad for cold remedy Airborne that showed the bare backside of 84-year-old actor Mickey Rooney.

“You want your commercial to be one of the ones that’s talked about,” said Cornell University marketing professor Douglas Stayman. “So many people who watch the Super Bowl are not interested in the game.”

While Ford, GM and Honda battle for high scores in the many postgame ad rankings, DaimlerChrysler AG’s Chrysler Group has chosen to sit out this year’s fray. “It’s a great medium to use if you’re looking for awareness,” said Chrysler spokeswoman Suraya Dasante. “The products that we’ve got out right now, they’re not really hurting for awareness.”

Chrysler, which makes the popular 300 sedan and Dodge Ram pickup, was at the center of a Super Bowl controversy last year over its sponsorship of a halftime Lingerie Bowl pitting scantily clad models in a game of touch football. Chrysler later pulled out of the deal under pressure from critics who labeled the company sexist.

This year, Lincoln is the automotive sponsor of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Party on the eve of the game.

Like most companies that advertise during the Super Bowl, automakers try to maximize the mileage they get from their commercials. Volvo and Cadillac have created Web sites to get viewers more involved with their vehicles.

At CadillacUnder5.com, consumers are invited to submit five-second films for a national contest. The contest is linked to a series of ads that Cadillac has been running during the NFL playoffs. The ads, which also will air during and after the Super Bowl, hype three Cadillacs that can accelerate to 60 mph in less than five seconds. Cadillac has created a 60-second commercial to run in the second quarter.

Automakers also will be a strong presence in host city Jacksonville, Fla.

Cadillac will provide 400 vehicles to shuttle NFL officials and important visitors. The company also will host its annual celebrity go-kart race, which last year featured Paris Hilton, Jimmy Kimmel and Ice Cube.

You can reach Nick Bunkley at (313) 222-2293 or nbunkley@detnews.com. Source: University of Detroit Mercy, Detroit News research Source: University of Detroit Mercy, Detroit News research

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

Focus on Editing: Jay Ankeney

The Aesthetics of Super Bowl Ads

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

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

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

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

THE IBM SPOT

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

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

SUPER MACHO

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Jean Halliday

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

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

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

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

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

High traffic

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

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

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

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

Multiple ad views

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other marketers’ Web traffic

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

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

~ ~ ~ Rich Thomaselli contributed to this report.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/2004-01-29-sb-special-effects_x.htm

By Bruce Horovitz, USA TODAY

The guy who made the Terminator look so creepy — and Jurassic Park’s dinosaurs so scary — is about to play on the biggest field of all: the Super Bowl.

John Rosengrant of Stan Winston Studio helped create this ‘alien’ for a FedEx ad.

A Super Bowl commercial, that is.

John Rosengrant, an ace Hollywood designer of yucky-looking creatures, filled two roles for FedEx’s (FDX) Super Bowl ad. First, he designed the life-size alien, crafted of rubber, silicon and fiberglass. Then, he got inside the body to play the brown-nosing alien.

“I have three kids,” he says. “They think Dad has a normal job.”

There’s nothing normal about creating ads for the Super Bowl. The super commercials call for super special effects. At least that’s what many of the free-spending marketers believe. Special effects — visual, mechanical, digital and audio — will show up this year in more than half the 60 ad slots.

The magic isn’t cheap. Some of these “How the heck did they do that?” micro-movies can cost up to $1.5 million to create, with special effects accounting for up to half that. That comes on top of the average $2.3 million spent per 30-second ad slot for the airtime.

It’s not just the Super Bowl anymore. It’s the Special Effects Bowl. Full of costly computer-generated Houdini-isms in ads for Pepsi’s (PEP) Sierra Mist and GM’s (GM) Cadillac. Full of new tricks, such as super sound that will — for the first time — surround millions of Super Bowl listeners in ads for Budweiser (BUD) and Chevy. Full of bang-up, movie-quality special effects in ads for AOL (TWX) and FedEx.

Sometimes, the gimmicks become an end in themselves — a substitute for a big idea. Then, the effect on the viewer is anything but special.

“When they fail, the sight of them flaming to earth seems to stick in your head,” warns Jeff Goodby, widely regarded as a creator of trend-setting ads who’s made numerous Super Bowl spots with and without effects.

But when they work, they’re unforgettable. In past Super Bowl hit ads, special effects put the mischievous boy inside a Pepsi bottle. They gave Christopher “Superman” Reeve the apparent ability to stand up from his wheelchair. They enabled Budweiser’s Clydesdales to play football, its frogs to chant and its lizards to chat.

Because Super Bowl advertisers spend so much money for the airtime — and because the domestic audience of about 90 million viewers is so huge — many marketers will do almost anything to make their ads stand out. Most use comedy. Many use animals.

But what better way to attract wandering eyeballs than with whiz-bang effects?

Some turn to computer technology that, while costly, is widely available. Others turn to special design or mechanical gee-whiz effects. Some combine them all. Yet, because special effects have become so commonplace on Super Sunday, it’s getting harder and harder to stand out.

“If an ad is too reliant on special effects,” warns adman Steve Hayden, who co-wrote the famous “1984″ ad for Apple Computer 20 years ago, “there’s a good chance that you have a turkey.”

The Apple (AAPL) ad — featuring a woman who destroys a Big Brother figure by tossing a hammer at a giant screen — cost the company a then-huge $600,000 and set Madison Avenue on its head.

Now, special effects are so routine that even Charmin — the toilet paper — will use them in its first Super Bowl spot.

“Too many people go for the special effect instead of the idea,” says Joe Pytka, who has directed more Super Bowl commercials than just about anyone. Pytka directed an IBM (IBM) spot, to make its debut Sunday, without using any big special effects. It features Muhammad Ali advising a young fan to shake up the world.

When you have Muhammad Ali in your ad, says Deirdre Bigley, vice president of advertising at IBM, “he is the special effect.”

Just another office drone

For FedEx, the special effect is “Jenkins” — the alien who is half-heartedly disguised as a geeky office worker. Although he wears a white shirt, tie and a paltry mask, he is clearly a slimy alien.

In the commercial, the drooling Jenkins convinces his boss he’s a brilliant office worker by strategically uttering the mantra, “Why don’t we use FedEx?”

“We told our ad agency, ‘Shock us. Awe us,’ ” says Laurie Tucker, senior vice president of global marketing at FedEx. “For the Super Bowl, you pull out all the stops and break all the rules.”

The creature was built in the Stan Winston Studio, which arguably has created more Super Bowl stars than the Dallas Cowboys. The company made the Bud frogs and lizards. It made the Clydesdales appear to play football. “I think of myself as a creator of creatures, not of special effects,” says Rosengrant’s boss, Stan Winston.

Rosengrant, who designed and plays the alien, says the process used to bring Jenkins alive was extremely complex.

On the set, 20 people work in unison to get the alien’s look right. One controls the foam that oozes from its mouth. Another stands at a computer keyboard with software that controls the alien’s breathing. Two more workers use radio controls to create the small movements of the lips, jaws and gills. Three puppeteers handled other movements. Other workers applied touch-up paints and make-up and fiddled with the lighting.

From inside the alien, Rosengrant had virtually no way out. He wore the skin-tight rubber suit — which zips from the rear — for 15 hours straight, with just one potty break and one lunch break.

“You learn to roll with the punches,” he says.

He also was essentially blind — except for a tiny monitor built inside so he could see his own performance. There were no slits or eyeholes. “If my eyes show in any way, it’s a giveaway,” he explains.

Making the alien’s mostly silicon head was the hardest part.

A plaster cast was made of Rosengrant’s head and the alien head was made to fit. That head sits on a mechanical “underskull” that assists the head’s motion. A body cast of Rosengrant was used to mold the foam-rubber bodysuit from a fiberglass form. By the time the head is latched onto the skullcap, the 5-foot-9 Rosengrant towers at more than 6-foot-4.

It gets very hot, and a modified hair dryer is used to constantly shoot cool air into the suit through a tiny flap in the throat.

For all the sweat, Rosengrant could make some serious money. As an actor, he’ll earn residuals every time the ad airs. Never mind that in his Super Bowl debut, no one will see Rosengrant’s face. “It doesn’t bother me,” he says. “I always wanted to be a monster.”

Here’s who else has big effects for the Big Game:

•Sierra Mist. The Pepsi brand combines an array of special effects in an ad that features an overheated guy who jumps off a high-rise fire escape into a pitcher of ice water at an outdoor cafe below.

To make the effect work, 18 pieces of film from different angles were combined with digital imagery. A motion-controlled camera also was used, which can be programmed to precisely duplicate the same movement repeatedly.

Other tricks are used, like shooting the actor’s body pressed against glass, then digitally shrinking it and placing it into the pitcher.

“The most difficult thing is making it seem funny, cartoonish and believable — but not gross,” says Bill Bruce, executive creative director at ad agency BBDO.

•Cadillac. Eager to appeal to younger buyers, Cadillac will use computer-generated imagery to show Cadillacs cutting through air as if they were slicing through water. When two pass each other, they create swirling waves. “Some people still have an antiquated perception of Cadillacs driving like boats,” says Mark LaNeve, Cadillac general manager. “We’re kicking up a new image of high-performance, precision machines.”

•Chevy. It isn’t always visual effects that make a spot stand out. This year, it’s sound, too. While the Super Bowl is broadcast in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, the ads have not had theater sound — until this year. Two commercials — one for Chevy and one for Budweiser — will use Dolby Pro Logic II.

You need to own the proper electronic gear to hear the super sound; about 10 million American households do.

In the Chevy ad, when the car drives past the camera, viewers with the gear will hear the car move around them, says Tom Daily, marketing director at Dolby Labs.

•AOL. The phone calls were frantic. More than 50 commuters called police in Irwindale, Calif., to report that there was a super-crazy guy on a motorcycle dangling from a helicopter cable some 1,000 feet above the freeway.

Crazy? Naw. Super Bowl ad.

The guy on the chopper is stuntman Mike “Mouse” McCoy. The ad is for AOL’s new TopSpeed service — which speeds dial-up Internet access.

With the use of special effects — which erase both the helicopter and cables — it will look in the ad as though the guy jumped his motorcycle over eight cement mixers, then literally flew out of a stadium somewhere into the stratosphere.

The ad stars the bike builders from the Discovery Channel reality series, American Chopper.

Stuntman McCoy says hanging from the helicopter was pretty hairy. “I had to trust that helicopter pilot with my life.”

But he prefers ads with mechanical special effects such as that to digital creations. The emotional value to a commercial is gone when too much of the imagery is created inside a computer, he says.

Besides, his livelihood depends on stunts. He doesn’t mind that his face never appears in the ad that folks are likely to be talking about on Monday.

“It comes with the job,” says McCoy. “You’re the unsung guy.”

http://www.newsday.com/business/printedition/ny-bzsupe283645225jan28,0,6979138.story?coll=ny-business-print

By Monty Phan

Come Sunday, you can expect to see the usual array of advertisers appearing during breaks in the Super Bowl: Spots for beer, cars and chips all will be there.

But so will the unexpected. At least two pharmaceutical companies plan on pitching pills meant to treat something that’s not thought of in quite the same way as beer, cars or chips: erectile dysfunction. So along with your Budweiser, Cadillac and Lay’s, you’ll also get Cialis and Levitra. And if that’s not enough, Viagra also may make an appearance during the game, although Pfizer, the drug’s maker, isn’t saying either way.

It’s the first time impotency drugs have aired during the Super Bowl, and it comes at a time when both Cialis and Levitra, which is an official NFL sponsor, are trying to grab market share away from leader Viagra.

Cialis, which is marketed jointly by Eli Lilly and ICOS Corp., will air a 60-second spot that plans to inform people what the drug treats and how it’s used, something neither Levitra nor Viagra has done in TV ads. Levitra, which is marketed by Bayer and GlaxoSmithKline, plans a 30-second spot.

Marketers will spend a record $2.3 million per 30 seconds of advertising time during the game, which will be broadcast by CBS. Last year, ABC received about $2.2 million per 30-second spot, and, the year before, Fox got a bit less than $2 million.

“We look at our target audience, and a lot of them will be watching the Super Bowl,” said Khoso Baluch, Eli Lilly’s executive director. “This was just an opportunity to use this platform to launch full branded consumer advertisements.”

Those won’t be the only Super Bowl first-timers. Staples will build on its “Staples. That was easy” tag line with a 30-second spot starring Joe Viterelli, the rotund actor typically typecast as a mobster in such films as “Analyze This.” Procter & Gamble also makes its Super Sunday debut with a 30-second commercial for Charmin.

America Online is paying for its largest presence ever at the game, with three spots during the Super Bowl, two spots before it and sponsorship of the halftime show. The ads will promote the Internet provider’s Top Speed service, which is designed to improve the company’s dial-up and broadband access. The series of spots during the game features the Teutul family, stars of the Discovery Channel series “American Chopper,” and their humorous attempts to demonstrate Top Speed’s attributes by mistakenly using the technology to soup up a 1964 Chevy Nova, said Len Short, AOL’s executive vice president of Brand Marketing.

“We’re not concerned about getting new members,” Short said of the campaign. “We’re making sure the people we’re serving aren’t interested in getting anybody else.”

Of course, the Super Bowl can hardly exist without Budweiser and Pepsi, two brands that usually air multiple ads during the game and will do so again this year. Pepsi plans on promoting its new partnership with computer-maker Apple’s iTunes Internet music store; the promotion involves a free music giveaway on special Pepsi products, and the ad stars people recently sued by the recording industry for alleged copyright infringement.

Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc. | Article licensing and reprint options

http://brandweek.com/brandweek/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2077147

Cadillac Drives Big Game Marketing 

NEW YORK — Cadillac said Tuesday that its marketing efforts in the third year of its deal with the NFL as the official vehicle of Super Bowl will include significant presence this week in and around the big game in Houston.

A previously revealed 60-second spot, “Turbulence,” via Chemistri, Troy, Mich., will debut during the Feb. 1 game on CBS, highlighting the CTS-V luxury sedan, the Escalade sport utility, the SRX performance utility and the XLR luxury roadster. In addition, Cadillac will be presenting sponsor of the Super Bowl MVP Award that airs immediately after the game, with the game’s MVP receiving a trophy and a Cadillac of his choice. The post-game events will be touted in a billboard ad at the game’s two-minute warning. Cadillac will also air three 30-second spots in the post-game show, one for the XLR and two for the SRX.

Before the game, Cadillac will sponsor the “Iron Man” show, hosted by CBS broadcaster and former Super Bowl MVP Phil Simms. Cadillac general manager Mark LaNeve will award an Escalade to the NFL player who wins Simms’ Iron Man award. Then, beginning in the game’s third quarter, fans will have a chance to help select the Super Bowl MVP by voting online in a Cadillac-sponsored MVP ballot on SuperBowl.com.

A Super Bowl-oriented print ad for XLR, “Raise the Roof,” will run in the NFL Experience program and will be the back cover of the Super Bowl program. A Super Bowl-oriented print ad for the Escalade ESV Platinum Edition, “This Year’s Trophy is Platinum,” will appear in the Super Bowl program and in a Texas Monthly Guide to the Super Bowl. Cadillac will also tout its involvement with the Super Bowl in advance with “brand bags”(plastic newspaper delivery bags) delivered the weekend of the game in several markets, including Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, St. Louis, Kansas City, New Orleans and Memphis.

–Staff Report

http://www.tvbarn.com/ticker/archives/017416.html

CBS PR: Super Bowl XXXVIII, hour by hour

Sponsors saddle up as cbs rides high into houston with week of Super Bowl programming highlighted by super bowl xxxviii on sunday, feb. 1, 2004

“SUPER BOWL XXXVIII” TO BE CALLED BY GREG GUMBEL AND PHIL SIMMS

JIM NANTZ, DAN MARINO, DEION SANDERS AND BOOMER ESIASON ANCHOR “THE SUPER BOWL TODAY” PRE-GAME SHOW

“CBS Sports Presents: MTV’s TRL @ the Super Bowl” Sponsored by Pepsi

CBS News’ “The Early Show” Scheduled To Broadcast Live from Houston

MTV: Music Television To Produce Spectacular “AOL Super Bowl XXXVIII Halftime Show”

General Motors/Cadillac Ride along as “The Phil Simms 2004 All-Iron Team” Is Named, with Greg Gumbel and Armen Keteyian

Wachovia, Pizza Hut, Sony PlayStation, H&R Block, Radio Shack and Ford Set to Sponsor Network’s Pre-Game Show “The Super Bowl Today”

Monster.com To Sponsor Halftime Report and Cadillac Backs Post-Game Show

“Nickelodeon Takes Over the Super Bowl” Corrals Kids on Super Bowl Sunday Morning

After The Game, “Survivor All-Stars” Casts Off Eighth Adventure

The sponsors have saddled up as Pepsi, General Motors/Cadillac, Wachovia, Pizza Hut, Sony PlayStation, H&R Block, Radio Shack, Ford, Monster.com and America Online join CBS when it rides into Houston for a week of Super Bowl programming featuring all the events, the hoopla and the fun capped by the main event: SUPER BOWL XXXVIII.

Greg Gumbel and Phil Simms will call the play-by-play of SUPER BOWL XXXVIII, along with Armen Keteyian and Bonnie Bernstein reporting, live from Reliant Stadium in Houston on Sunday, Feb. 1 (kickoff scheduled for 6:25 PM, ET) on the CBS Television Network.

Before and after the game, CBS Sports, CBS Entertainment, CBS News and MTV: Music Television and Nickelodeon will be on hand to chronicle and participate in America’s biggest day of television. And immediately following the game, SURVIVOR: ALL-STARS will cast off on its eighth adventure.

Following is a schedule of SUPER BOWL XXXVIII programming on CBS:

During Super Bowl Week:

Friday and Monday, Jan. 30 and Feb. 2

7:00-9:00 AM, ET/PT CBS News’ THE EARLY SHOW will broadcast live from Houston with Hannah Storm, Harry Smith, Rene Syler, Julie Chen and Dave Price

On Super Bowl Saturday (Jan. 31):

4:00- 5:00 PM, ET ROAD TO THE SUPER BOWL, one of the most anticipated sports specials of the year — edited from more than 800 miles of 16mm film — is the only show that spotlights a dozen NFL head coaches and countless players outfitted with NFL Films microphones. The special lauds all the leaping, fingertip catches, the diving goal-line plunges and the clash of line play from the 2003 season in NFL FILMS singular slow-motion cinematography.

9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT SUPER BOWL’S GREATEST COMMERCIALS, a retrospective of more than 30 years of the most anticipated, popular and entertaining commercials, is presented before an audience at the NFL Experience event. Categories include the most popular commercials featuring animals, favorite animated spots — and the funniest, the sexiest and the most expensive Super Bowl commercials ever made.

On Super Bowl Sunday (Feb. 1):

11:00 AM-12:00 Noon NICKELODEON TAKES OVER THE SUPER BOWL as it corrals the kids on Super Bowl Sunday morning with the biggest stars in the Nickelodeon universe, including U-Pick Live hosts Brent Popolizio and Candace Bailey, as they invade Houston and take on the Super Bowl from a kids’ point of view. It’s an hour of football, music, games, NFL players and, of course, plenty of Nick’s signature green slime.

12:00 Noon-1:00 PM, ET CBS SPORTS PRESENTS: MTV’S TRL @ THE SUPER BOWL hits the trail out of its Times Square studio and hip-hops along in Houston. Hosted by Carson Daly, the Super Bowl edition of MTV’s most popular show will feature guest appearances by top musical artists and celebrities, as well as popular National Football League players and is sponsored by Pepsi.

1:00-2:00 PM, ET THE PHIL SIMMS 2003 ALL-IRON TEAM sponsored by General Motors and Cadillac with CBS Sports’ lead NFL analyst (and N.Y. Giants Super Bowl XXI MVP) and his broadcast partner, Greg Gumbel, hosting the fifth annual selection of 15 players and one coach who best represent the qualities of Iron Men. [The Iron Men Trophy is an old fashioned iron emblematic of Simms' obsession with ironing. According to his mother, as a child Phil pressed his football and baseball uniforms and to this day remains committed to creases.]

2:00-6:00 PM, ET THE SUPER BOWL TODAY from Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. CBS Sports’ Jim Nantz, Dan Marino, Deion Sanders and Boomer Esiason anchor the Network’s pre-game show that previews all the football and all the excitement leading up to the Super Bowl. Reporters Marcus Allen and Lesley Visser, along with Armen Keteyian, Bonnie Bernstein and special contributor Dick Enberg will cover the action and the music at the NFL Tailgate Party, the fans’ interactive games at the NFL Experience, the pre-game rituals and arrivals, parties and planning that make the Super Bowl America’s Holiday. Sponsors of the pre-game show include: Wachovia (2:00-3:00 PM, ET), Pizza Hut (3:00-4:00 PM, ET), Sony PlayStation (4:00-5:00 PM, ET), H&R Block (5:00-5:30 PM, ET) and Radio Shack (5:30-6:00 PM, ET).

6:00 PM, ET, to Kick-off FORD SUPER BOWL KICK-OFF SHOW, with “The Super Bowl Today” team.

6:25 PM, ET, to Conclusion SUPER BOWL XXXVIII, live from Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas, with Greg Gumbel (play-by-play), Phil Simms (analyst) and Armen Keteyian and Bonnie Bernstein reporting from the sidelines. CBS Sports will deploy a talent, editorial and technical team of close to 500 persons for the broadcast. The Game will be broadcast in high definition television. This is the 15th Super Bowl to be presented on the CBS Television Network, the last in 2001 when the Baltimore Ravens defeated the New York Giants, 34-7.

Halftime Report SUPER BOWL XXXVIII HALFTIME REPORT sponsored by Monster.com with Jim Nantz, Dan Marino, Deion Sanders and Boomer Esiason with highlights and analysis of the first half.

Halftime AMERICA ONLINE SUPER BOWL XXXVIII HALFTIME SHOW is presented by MTV: Music Television [NOTE TO EDITORS: Details will be announced at a later date.]

Immediately After the Game CADILLAC POST GAME SHOW with “The Super Bowl Today” team.

Following the Post-Game Show SURVIVOR: ALL-STARS premieres, hosted by Jeff Probst, featuring 18 of the most memorable castaways in the previous seven “Survivor” adventures competing in a contest of extreme physical and mental endurance that will reward the winner $1 million and the title of “Ultimate Sole Survivor.” The 18 all-stars will be stranded in a remote region, many miles from civilization, to fend for themselves while vying for the grand prize.

* * * * *

http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/2004-01-22-sb-automakers_x.htm

By Mike Hudson, The Detroit News

For the first time in more than a decade, all three Detroit automakers will have a significant presence during the Super Bowl broadcast, spending millions for advertising time and other promotions during the world’s biggest marketing bonanza.

The Super Bowl offers a rare and pricey chance to reach 130 million viewers in the United States and 1 billion worldwide.

Advertisers further benefit from the postgame buzz as marketing experts and couch potatoes spend a couple days debating the best and worst commercials.

Ford Motor is sponsoring the pregame show on CBS and buying time for two ads that will be broadcast before kickoff — a 30-second spot and a 60-second spot — featuring its 500-hp $140,000 Ford GT super car.

General Motors is digging deep for prime Super Bowl exposure this year, buying up two 60-second ads for its Chevrolet and Cadillac brands at a cost of more than $4 million each.

GM also will run ads immediately after the game. Cadillac will specifically sponsor the postgame show, the most valuable player trophy and the two-minute warning and will give away vehicles to top-performing players.

DaimlerChrysler’s Chrysler Group, still smarting from an aborted attempt to host a pay-per-view “Lingerie Bowl” at half-time, will run a 30-second Dodge ad during the first quarter of the game.

“This year is a very important year because we’re showing that the domestic auto industry is a force to be reckoned with on the largest stage there is in advertising,” said Michael Bernacchi, marketing professor at the University of Detroit Mercy.

“They are saying, ‘We’re getting ready to be a dominant force again.’ ”

Cable television, digital recorders and fickle viewership trends have made the Super Bowl’s massive audience more valuable than ever in the past five years.

The game guarantees a rapt audience, especially among young men, a key consumer demographic for automakers.

And with women making up 46% of the game’s audience, advertisers can appeal to nearly any market they please.

“You’ve got viewers going in a hundred different directions in television. But with this game, you know you’ll get them all,” said John Antil, a marketing professor at the University of Delaware. “This is the one place where the mass audience still is every year.”

GM’s huge ad buy this year places the automaker third among all advertisers for the Super Bowl, spending a total of about $9 million.

Only Pepsi, with $13.5 million, and Anheuser-Busch, with $22.5 million, are spending more. There are typically 59 to 61 slots for 30-second commercials per Super Bowl.

It promises to be a solid year for advertising overall, analysts say, with CBS charging about 5% more per 30-second spot than last year. This year’s rate is estimated to be $2.25 million for 30 seconds, according to Advertising Age magazine.

If a company’s ad resonates with an audience, that money is well spent, analysts say. The Super Bowl boasts viewers worldwide who are more attuned than normal viewers to watching the commercials.

Another important marketing segment is behind the scenes, where companies sponsor games, parties and information booths for those in attendance — usually high-income business people and celebrities who enjoy spending their cash.

GM will provide 400 Cadillacs for use by the National Football League to transport officials and workers in Houston. The company will sponsor a celebrity go-cart race that last year featured stars like Ashton Kutcher.

Contributing: Detroit News Staff Writers Eric Mayne and Brett Clanton

http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=39518

$2.25 Million for a 30-Second Commercial

By Richard Linnett

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — The average price of a 30-second spot on the Super Bowl has jumped 7% to a record-breaking $2.25 million, solidifying the game’s role as the centerpiece of the marketing year, even as grumbling grows about the effectiveness and cost-efficiency of network TV.

CBS has sold 54 in-game spots for the Feb. 1 game to marketers such as Anheuser-Busch Cos., Frito-Lay, Pepsi-Cola Co. and Procter & Gamble Co. Eight slots remain, according to media buyers. Those last spots, as usual, are available for significantly less than the spots already sold, although the network is shuffling inventory in a bid to keep the value high. The fourth quarter is now selling for as low as $1.8 million, media buyers reported.

Prices negotiable

“CBS is trying to entice advertisers,” said one top media buyer who has not bought the game yet, but is being heavily courted. “Prices are negotiable, but they’re not diving yet. They’re freeing up other quarters to attract buyers.”

The game sell-off had been moving at a fine clip until several weeks ago when it stalled at 85% of inventory sold out. Now media buyers are saying the game is slowly inching toward a hair’s breadth of 90% sold as a result of some aggressive moves by the network.

Inventory is still available in all quarters of the game, including the first, after some large advertisers either dropped out or cut 60-second spots down to 30 seconds, media buying executives told AdAge.com. Two media buyers said it’s likely CBS is shifting its promotions for its own shows to later in the game in order to cut loose the premium inventory in the first and second quarters.

Soft market

“The market softened up a bit,” said a top media executive who bought into the game, “so there’s not a lot of money floating around out there, so that’s probably why they are trying to sell aggressively. They don’t want it sitting there too long.”

Executives at CBS had no comment.

Media agency executives, however, praise CBS for the selling job it has done so far, as parent Viacom worked out attractive packages around the Super Bowl, throwing in spot deals in other shows and networks and in outdoor.

Acting like Mel

“They are really being smart about driving their revenue,” said the top media executive. “They are in essence, acting like [President-Chief Operating Officer Mel Karmazin], being real aggressive about how they push stuff, but they are not doing it in a piggish way.”

CBS also created packages in shows before and after the game, as well as in-game sponsorships. General Motors Corp.’s Cadillac, the official auto of the game, will run a 60-second spot during the game and will also appear during the broadcast of Phil Sims’ All Iron Show, an afternoon preview to the game. It will also have three 30-second ads launching the SRX sport utility vehicle in the postgame show, for which it is the title sponsor. Finally, the game’s most valuable player gets to pick out his own new Cadillac during an on-air presentation.

“CBS did a gangbuster business selling the game early,” said Peter Gardiner, media director at Interpublic Group of Cos.’ Deutsch, which has at least two spots in the game, one for Monster Worldwide. “They’ve been in a pretty good position and they are pretty good at maintaining their pricing.”

Defying trends

While broadcast TV continues to suffer serious erosion among viewers, especially 18- to 49-year-old men, the Super Bowl continues to defy trends. Last year, according to Nielsen Media Research, the game was picked up in more than 43 million households and watched by more than 88 million Americans. This year, media buyers project the game will draw 90 million viewers. The $2.25 million average for the 62 spots means marketers will spend about $139.5 million (excluding half-time and pre-game) — or about $1.61 for each viewer.

“The Super Bowl is bigger than television,” said Ray Warren, managing director of Omnicom Group’s OMD, typically the largest buyer of time and which bought almost 20% of the game. “The game is a national holiday. It’s the only place to put 100 million people in front of a commercial.”

~ ~ ~ Jean Halliday and Bradley Johnson contributed to this report.

http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/tv_radio/article/0,1651,TCP_1083_1704515,00.html

By Bob Betcher media columnist 

It wasn’t a night for Metamucil ads.

The commercials on Sunday’s ABC telecast of the Super Bowl took aim at young – mostly football-loving – men with a mixture of spots for beer, soda pop, sports cars, and action-themed movies.

Each slickly-produced 30-second commercial set advertisers back upwards of $2.2 million. It was a bargain, many said, since they reached about 130 million viewers.

My favorites:

* Pepsi Twist – In a dream, the children of TV bad-boy Ozzy Osbourne turn into the wholesome duo of Donny and Marie Osmond. Ozzy’s wife turns up as Carol Brady of the “The Brady Bunch.” The Osbournes and the Osmonds – truly strange bedfellows.

* Cadillac – A subway passenger witnesses the style change of Caddies from the 1950s to the present. An effective execution in shedding the old-fogies image of Cadillac and to lure younger buyers (not that there’s anything wrong with old fogies).

* Pepsi’s Sierra Mist – A dog cools off his master with a blast of water from a fire hydrant. (I could be biased here. Publix was handing out free Sierra Mist samples Saturday and I found the lemon-lime drink smoother than Coke’s Sprite.)

* Bud Lite – A beer-drinking dude winds up with three arms, and uses his extra extremity to lure women. Offbeat, funny.

* FedEx – In a spoof of “The Castaway” starring Tom Hanks as a FedEx executive stranded for five years on an island,

* FedEx guy discovers that a box he was committed to deliver – unopened – could have brought rescue since it contained a satellite phone, a Global Positioning System and a water purifier. Dark, but funny.

* Quizno’s Subs – The cook is so involved with making his grilled subs, he shows up minus his pants. A silly spot, but it holds your interest and the food made me salivate.

Anheuser-Busch, makers of Bud Lite, took top honors in the commercial count category, airing 11, 30-second commercials throughout the game.

By my count, usual big-spender McDonalds – now facing a flurry of store closings – aired only one spot.

My vote for the two worst commercials:

* Subway – Annoying sub-boy Jered is in a slumber, dreaming of opening his own Subway eatery in his house. Subway needs to retire this guy post haste or at least buy the dude a full-fledged steak dinner at Outback.

* Philip Morris – The “talk, they’ll listen” spot, designed to stop teen smoking, is the most vivid example of what’s wrong with the double-talking tobacco company.

Readers who participated in a TCPalm.com Web site poll had their own thoughts:

Judi Bewersdorf said: “The best, well-done commercial was by Cadillac where the man gets on the subway train, sits down, looks out the window and sees the different kinds of Cadillacs pasted on the wall.”

Sheila Hamilton wrote: “The commercials fell way under the bar for Super Bowl. Those sad commercials ranged from lame (Cadillac chasing bulls and three-armed guy) to gross-vulgar (clown suit guy), the Osbournes (not funny), to slightly humorous (Sierra Mist dog).”

And from Benoit Lemay of Port St. Lucie: “Great win for the Bucs, but a mediocre year for commercials. Too many promos for ABC future programs. Unable to sell all the airtime?”

Indeed, ABC clogged up its airwaves with promos for a couple of new series, “Dragnet” and “Veritas,” as well as its new late-night talk show, “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”

And did we really need to see Diane Sawyer and Charlie Gibson of the ABC News division tossing a football in promos for “Good Morning America”?

Local ABC affiliate WPBF Channel 25 repeatedly promoted its late Sunday news, airing unpleasant images of dog fighting and promos for next Sunday about jam-ups on Interstate 95 in Palm Beach County.

Besides the commercials, ABC managed to spoil the half-time entertainment show by superimposing an “AT&T Wireless” logo on the screen for the duration of the acts. It was enough to make me flee to Sprint.

What’s next for ABC’s anything-for-a-buck ad hawkers? Selling the Sunsweet Prune Juice log during “World News Tonight with Peter Jennings”?

Nah, make it Metamucil.

Super Bowl ratings rate

Super Bowl XXXVII on ABC pulled a 43.8 rating and a 62 share from 6:30 to 10:15 p.m. – three percent above last year’s Patriots/Rams match-up on Fox.

WPBF Channel 25, which delivers ABC programs to the Treasure Coast and Palm Beach County, scored similar numbers, peaking with a 50.7 rating and a 63 share at 9:55 p.m., the station said Monday.

The gridiron contest tossed regular Sunday night viewing patterns out the window.

Normally, top-rated CBS’ “60 Minutes” on WPEC Channel 12 placed a very distant second place with 7.19 rating and a 9.88 share between 7 and 8 p.m. “60 Minutes” didn’t even try to compete with ABC, opting for a repeat episode with female-skewing celebrity profiles of Barbra Streisand, Candice Bergen, Tina Turner and Shirley MacLaine.

A couple of prime-time WB shows on WTVX Channel 34, including “High School Reunion,” scored so low opposite the Super Bowl they earned only “hash marks” in the ratings – meaning audience levels were too low to measure.

National figures are from Electronic Media; local numbers are from Nielsen Media Research.

A rating is the percentage of TV households; a share is the percentage of TV sets in use.

Factoring in a 25.7/38 for the post game at 10:30 p.m., ABC nationally beat CBS, NBC, Fox and the WB combined by 169 percent.

- bob.betcher@scripps.com

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