2009 Super Bowl Ads Commercials Selling Fast on NBC

super bowl 2009 tampa bay florida game logo XLIII

It’s that time of year again when the first rumblings of the next year’s super bowl advertisers come out. (for super bowl 43) I think the companies just ask that their info be released this early to start the buzz cycle and get more mileage out of the media buy. There really isn’t any other reason to release the advertiser names now in September when the ads aren’t even finished yet.

They say the 30 second ad spots are selling for $3 Million dollars each. That is the going rate for a direct sales pitch into 88 million homes and TV sets all at the same time. (when are they going to start webcasting the game and the ads all together like a second delivery system of the same signal? why wouldn’t that work?) Advertisers that actually get a positive ROI from that kind of heavy hitting creative investment are wide appeal mass market companies that have products that are either seasonal at that time of year or products that relate to sports watchers or families watching at home.  Products like snacks, drinks, beer and cars have long been popular categories for Super Bowl Ads.

This year some of the confirmed advertisers are Pepsi and CocaCola, Anheuser-Bush, and a bunch of un-named Automotive, Movie and snack companies. Doritos have done really well the past few years and I wonder if they will plunge in again. I think the trend may be finally waning in the internet sites do ads category since few of them have that kind of money laying around anymore and/or need the visibility.

The timing of your ad during the Super Bowl Game is also crucial. The good spots are probably taken already in Q1 and Q3. Q2 gets boring because people have been sitting a while and just want halftime to start so they can use the bathroom and Q4 may be less well watched if the game isn’t almost tied the whole time. Many people just turn it off when the game is a blowout. The ends of pods are also bad because it just leads back into the game and consumers forget the ad pretty quickly. Being first in a pod is best since people have been proven to remember things in chunks and the beginning and end are usually the chunks they remember most.

Sometimes companies get their ads in at the last moment when 1 or 2 ads are left a week or two before the Super Bowl Game but this may not be available this year if companies are paying 300K more per ad willingly and forking over the money (or deposit) this early in the year. I think that marketers are realizing that in a fragmented market you have to be as prominent on every screen as possible to stay top of mind and above the chatter that gets tuned out. But ad placement is only 1/2 of the strategy. The other half is really the most important. It is really about relevance and humor. If you can make your product funny in a way that real people identify with personally, you have a winner and get all the chatter at the watercooler the next day.

Football Update Overheard in the Office

“I have it on good authority that Brett Farve (the quarterback of the Green Bay Packers) is actually 63% cheese.”

this was interjected in a conversation about football teams still in the playoffs.

This is why I enjoy sitting next to creatives. (Art/Design professionals) They have more creativity in their pinky fingernail than I do in my entire body.

This is the same guy that earlier in the week said that a Giant Rutebega had conquered the world.

And now back to work…

Super Bowl Sunday 2008 Almost Sold Out

I’m not sure why the 2008 super bowl ads are almost sold out in October when the game isn’t till February but maybe the holidays inbetween now and then have something to do with it. If you are one of the people who is buying one of these very very expensive FOX $2.7 million dollar 30 second ad spots here are some tips:

1. First consider is it really relevant to advertise in the super bowl? Is there a need for your product in February? Is there a relevance to families, football and/or men? These are the core demographics. If it’s not a match, skip it no matter how badly you want the publicity. 

2. Make em laugh. Funny ads have staying power both at the watercooler the next day and for months afterwards. If people relate to the humor in the situation its even better.

3. Use something new. Don’t run some old ad we have seen a million times already. New creative or no creative is the way to go.

4. Don’t bother with celebrities. Unless its particularly relevant to your product. And I don’t ever really think it is. They raise costs dramatically and don’t really raise the appeal of what a super bowl watcher is looking for.

5. Remember to support this really expensive placement so it is not instantly forgotten before consumers get out their pocketbook. Support the super bowl ad with a well diversified campaign offline, online and everywhere else. This means everything from TV commericals for weeks afterwards, search ads, social networking if possible, blogs if possible,  a microsite or at least a mention of the ad on your home page and make it available to view online, print ads if you still do that, emails linking to microsite and coordinating online display ads too.

6. You can make spending this much money on an ad a publicity event in and of itself. It is cheezy though and people don’t really care unless they are benefitting from it. A press release can be ok, and reveal some hints about why the ad will be appealing, but leave the big reveal of the commercial for the actual game. But again this is totally stupid if your ads are not new, not edgy, not funny and not successful. So, proceed with caution here.

Sports Trivia Game

In every bar there is a Golden Tee Game and most likely some sports trivia game. The nation has always loved its sports and many people find watching sports is their main form of recreation as they get older. So if you got to come up with your own trivia questions for your own game wouldn’t that be cool? Or how about challenging your friends? They always think they know more than you don’t they? Well a new sports trivia site has created a user generated game where you submit questions along with all the other people on the site and everyone plays against each other and their friends. If you are a sports nut, this site is going to be highly addictive for you. You can also upload your own audio and video and clips from games to help with the questions and the discussion. I have never really followed sports, but all the guys in the office I work at will be thrilled to find out about this. They will need something to bond over when the fantasy baseball and fantasy football seasons aren’t in session later this year. Who knew that sports could be a hobby online as much as it is offline these days?

Fantasy TV Watching?

First there was fantasy football, then it spread to baseball and basketball. Now you can get most any sport to play a “fantasy” game where you choose players and use their real game stats to give your team points and stats by technological magic, and voila, you get an alternate reality that no one really sees, but the results are good for entertainment, friendly wagers and bragging rights.

I have a feeling this is a truly American phenomenon. Instead of being happy and content with the smorgasbord of entertainment options available to them the consumers now want to falsely feel that they are smarter than the coaches, owners and managers and manage things on their own. Well I can say that from working in several offices that have been possessed by this phenomenon, it never works out like you think it will. Most everyone looses their money and has less control over the players they recruit and how things go than they think they will. Coaches are coaches for a reason. They’re actually good at what they do.

The newest entry into this fray is a site for managing a team of TV shows, like a fantasy Television network. The winner gets a very real 100K prize, but what they really hope to do is get people more interested in watching TV again. So they pay out 100K to one guy. (less than 1/4 the cost of one :30 commercial on Grey’s Anatomy) The other million people are watching more TV for free. It’s reality TV that everyone can participate in and a really cheap ad campaign. It’s just the cost of the site and the techies that run it and the prize. This is far cheaper than a print ad campaign or an Internet campaign saying, “Hey, remember TV”?

I have always been curiously interested in how gullible people are in respect to contests and sweepstakes. Reality TV and Fantasy games and contests are really a slightly tweaked formula of the same kind. People buy lottery tickets for a prize that they will sadistically never win, enter contests where they really only loose their personal information to a marketer and still think they will win the publisher’s clearinghouse sweepstakes. Now they are apparently are gullible enough to follow along with TV shows not because they are learning anything or because the content is high quality, but because there is a 1 in a million chance of winning 100K. I wish people weren’t so easily swayed.