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Despite the media slump that's been running alongside the worldwide recession, CBS (CBS) isn't having any trouble moving ad space for the Super Bowl.
The event is still more than a month from now, but the network reports having only a few commercial slots left for the big game. In fact, 95% of its 62 slots have moved, even with two of the most committed Super Bowl advertisers -- Pepsi (PEP) and General Motors (GRM) -- bowing out of the action. The first half is already sold out completely.
Flexibility in pricing is being cited as the key to moving inventory this year, with John Bogusz, executive vice president of sales for CBS Sports, telling USA Today, "There's not one price for ads in the game," with some selling for as little as $2 million and others reaching $3 million. Ads in the first quarter are most expensive, with the fourth quarter the cheapest.
In 2007, the last time CBS got the Super Bowl, Jo Ann Ross, president of network sales, said, "We were sitting with 11 or 12 unsold units" at this point in the sales cycle. Based on Ross's revealing that only 5% of the 62 slots are left, the network has only three remaining.
Even though Pepsi and General Motors aren't linking up with the game this year, most of the event's veteran advertisers are back, including Anheuser-Busch and Coca-Cola (KO). Doritos and CareerBuilder, which is partly owned by Gannett (GCI), are jumping on the user-generated content trend and using contests to source ads for the Super Bowl.
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