Who's ready for some football? The Super Bowl is this weekend, and you know what that means -- commercials that we will all be talking about on Monday morning. In fact, we all know someone who says they watch the game for the commercials.
CBS announced earlier this week that it sold out all the in-game spots, but a few pre- and post-game spots remained. How much money did this make for CBS (CBS)? Roughly $200 million, and that is a low-end estimate. We all know why advertisers flock to the Super Bowl, as more than 98.7 million viewers tuned in last year. No matter who is in the Super Bowl, people watch the game and the commercials -- and eventually they may buy the products from the ads.
There will be some big names missing from the commercial lineup, including General Motors (GM) and Pepsi (PEP) (although PepsiCo will have ads this year). GM's decision was most likely based on the fact that the company has had a very rough year, while Pepsi has decided to move toward other marketing strategies. According to this article, Doritos and Budweiser (BUD) are the early leaders for favorite Super Bowl ads. How can there be early leaders? It's called the Internet and viral marketing. Budweiser and Doritos have had ads online, allowing those thirsting and hungering for Super Bowl ads to get an early look at some of the offerings. The dawn of Facebook and other social networking sites allow companies to release previews of their commercials, resulting in more hype than the game itself.
Seriously, if I hear any more about the Tim Tebow ad, I will hate it as much as I hate the Florida Gators before even seeing the ad. Some people are more excited for the big Stephen Baldwin vs. William Baldwin commercial for search service KGB than they are for the Manning vs. Brees matchup in the Super Bowl.
There has been quite a deal made about companies that have had ads banned, like ManCrunch, GoDaddy.com, and even Budweiser. I wonder if CBS and others realize that the banning of these ads has drawn more attention than may have been garnered had the ads aired. I saw a version of the banned Budweiser ad (about a clothing drive for Bud that ends up with employees walking around with strategically placed black bars) that seems the company meant for it to get banned and released on the Internet. The ad is more than a minute long, but wraps up at 1:20, the typical Super Bowl commercial is 30 seconds long or a minute long.
In the coming years, we will see companies make commercials just to get them banned and released on the Internet -- let's call it the GoDaddy.com phenomena. I am so sick and tired of seeing Danica Patrick talk about this Internet site and then have the company implore us to go to the web and see the "unrated" version of the commercial -- honestly, who cares? Unfortunately for those of us sick and tired of the GoDaddy.com phenomena will suffer with it for quite a while. This is a trend folks, and it ain't stopping any time soon.
There are some commercials I am looking forward to, including Dr Pepper's KISS and mini-KISS commercial (hey, I'm a member of the KISS army -- sue me) and the HomeAway.com commercial featuring Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo (one of my early Hollywood commercials). What commercials are you looking forward to?
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