GoDaddy.com became a household name after their Super Bowl Ad campaign (Photo Courtesy: GoDaddy.com)
This Sunday is “Super Bowl Sunday” and that term is not just referring to the championship game of the National Football League. Super Bowl Sunday is also a critical day for advertising creative directors as their top commercials are on display for the largest TV audience of the year.
The Super Bowl is a unique event in that people who aren’t even remotely fans of the game, let alone the two teams playing, want to watch JUST to see the commercials. In some years, during boring blowout games, the ads were the ONLY thing to talk about the next day! But, have you ever had a friend say: “Boy I can’t wait to watch ‘Desperate Housewives’ tonight. I hate the show, but I really want to see the commercials.”? I sure hope not, for your sake.
When I sold TV, whenever we ran up against other media (specifically radio) the one factor we could always parlay into the conversation was “have you ever listened to a radio show just for the commercials?” or “have you ever discussed a funny or interesting radio commercial with your co-workers/friends/family?” The answer was nearly unanimously “no”. But Super Bowl commercials become “water cooler talk.” There are blogs and websites that pop up right after the game that allow you to stream and discuss your favorite or least favorite spots. I looked at a site yesterday that had the top ads from the last thirteen Super Bowls available for streaming. I’m sure YouTube has them going all the way back to the 70s!!
There are a lot of marketing analysts that ask: “is this all worth it?” because Super Bowl spots come at a very high price. Spots sold a couple of years ago, before the recession, at over $3 million for 30 seconds. (Continued…)
