The Super Bowl of Advertising

Despite a faltering economy and the highest unemployment in 15 years, there are still companies optimistic enough to put out big bucks for a star advertising spot on this year’s Super Bowl.

How big? $3 million for 30 seconds. There are 67 national commercial spots airing in this year’s game, which is a total take of $201 million for NBC. Not bad for a few hours of airtime.

As I write this article there is still another round of playoffs before knowing which teams will play on February 1st. But who plays is irrelevant to advertisers, many of whom placed their buys and secured their positions when spots became available last May.

For advertisers, the Super Bowl isn’t about the game. It’s about the 97.5 million people who watch the game. The opportunity to reach an audience that size is too valuable to miss. Even more, the Super Bowl audience crosses all demographics and profiles.

When you compare the cost of a Super Bowl ad to the standard measurement cost of media, which is how much you spend per thousand people reached, the Super Bowl is actually an incredibly cheap buy at only $30.76 per thousand viewers.

The advertising has become an integral part of the Super Bowl experience. And that delivers another bonus. Viewers actually watch the commercials during the Super Bowl.

You might think that running an ad on the Super Bowl almost guarantees a positive return on investment. But history shows that even when a medium delivers the single biggest group of consumers at one time, ineffective or poorly executed commercials can make an advertiser a bigger loser than the number 2 team in the game.

Last year’s Super Bowl lineup of ads was considered to be one of the weakest ever. Many pundits and critics thought it showcased the worst side of advertising. Some spots were almost soft porn. Others ridiculed ethnic differences. And some actually terrified children who were watching.

Last year’s lowest of the low included a juvenile, sexist striptease spot for GoDaddy, a spot showing a less-than-attractive young woman using Planters Nuts as a “fragrance” to attract men, a dull-as-dishwater ad for Coca Cola showing two opposite politicos, James Carville and Bill Frist, agreeing that Coke is refreshing (although the spot wasn’t), and a mocking of immigrants by Bud Light.

Many of the creators of last year’s ads would do well to pick up a copy of David Ogilvy’s book Ogilvy on Advertising and find out how ill-suited they are for their profession. As Ogilvy, one of the universally acknowledged masters of advertising, states, “the purpose of advertising is to sell.” About TV advertising Ogilvy writes, “I don’t want you to tell me that you find it creative. I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.”

This year I recommend that as you watch the game and the ads, you set up your own scorecard for the advertising. Watch and rate the commercials on the clarity of their communication, how engaging the message is, how appropriate the advertising is for the target consumer, and whether the ad is persuasive enough to get you to buy the product.

Who can you expect to see this year during the game’s commercial breaks? Here is a pre-game peek at this year’s starting lineup of Super Bowl advertisers.

In the automotive category GM will be noticeably absent this year. After taking taxpayer money in government handouts, they indicated they wouldn’t use it for Super Bowl ads. However you will see Audi back with another try at building sales for their R8 sports car, and Hyundai will reveal it’s new 2010 Genesis Coupe with the celebrity cachet of cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

No Super Bowl lineup would be complete without Coke and Pepsi who are back this year to continue the Cola Wars. Both have bought multiple spots throughout the game but so far have kept their creatives top secret.

A new ad approach this year will be a combination ad that promotes the new DreamWorks film “Monsters vs. Aliens” with SoBeLife Water, in 3-D. Watch for it at the end of the second quarter. Be sure to have your 3-D glasses handy.

Internet companies will be well represented again this year. CareerBuilder has two spots scheduled, but without the monkeys from past Super Bowl ads. Monster.com will be competing for the career/job seeking market. Their spots should be timely for a year when millions of people are out of work and looking for jobs.

Cars.com is blowing a big budget on one 60-second spot. E-Trade Financial is expected to be back with the talking baby who, given the recent track records of so-called financial experts, may have even more credibility than last year. And GoDaddy will be back with what is expected to be another risqué-themed commercial.

Once again, however, the Granddaddy of Super Bowl advertisers will be Anheuser-Busch. No longer an American-owned company, they are still the major ad player in the game. This year they are running 10 commercials. Different spots will feature Bud Light Lime, Budweiser American Ale, and the ever-popular Clydesdale horses.

What remains to be seen is whether any of the creative will be focused on the extreme differences in consumer behavior from this year to last. Consumers at all wealth levels are becoming tight-fisted with their wallets. Credit is drying up. Demand for products is diminishing in almost every consumer category. Spending is significantly reduced for discretionary items.

Some advertisers will be noticeably absent this year, such as Fed Ex, who hasn’t missed advertising in the Super Bowl for the past twelve years. Fed Ex has stated that due to the recession and what they perceive as unprecedented economic waters, a Super Bowl ad is not where they should put their dollars at this time.

But the fans will be there, and with that audience comes an exceptional opportunity for brand exposure.

If this year’s game has an ending that is even close in excitement to the last-minute victory of the Giants last year, causing audience numbers to surge to 107 million viewers, it is an opportunity that can’t be matched for those companies who still have advertising budgets to spend.

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