Adland_ Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Branded Planet - James P. Othmer [84]
I tried to pretend that I didn’t care, that I didn’t mind missing out on having my spot watched by some ninety million viewers, including the industry trades and every creative director in North America. I tried to forget that if it was well reviewed, it very well could have changed my life. But my bar tab said otherwise.
So when I finally sat down to watch Super Bowl XXXI in 1997, it wasn’t to watch my telecommunications spot; it was once again to watch the brilliance of others, and to hear my father-in-law, after watching the latest Bud, FedEx, or Pepsi spot, say what he has said during every Super Bowl for the last twenty-five years: “Why don’t you ever do something like that?”
Today, for younger creative people who work across a number of new-media channels, Super Bowl ads don’t seem to have the glamour or appeal they once did. But still, the Super Bowl remains the most visible and powerful advertising medium in the world, truly capable of changing the careers and fortunes of the people who create its most memorable commercials.
One Day of Passion Versus 364 of Abstinence
In late 2007, more than two months before the kickoff of Super Bowl XLII, all but two of Fox’s sixty-three in-game commercial units had been sold, and for record rates. This was a dramatic departure from the previous few Super Bowl broadcasts, when networks were peddling unsold, discounted inventory right until the moment when the performer du jour was carted out to bastardize the national anthem.
The quick sales weren’t because the spots were selling at bargain rates: indeed, to the pleasure of Rupert Murdoch, Fox Sports, and the NFL, brands were spending up to $2.7 million for a thirty-second spot on the February 3 broadcast,* with discounts available to repeat advertisers (if you can call $80,000, as opposed to $90,000, a second a discount).
According to Lou D’Ermilio, senior vice president of media relations at Fox Sports, selling out a Super Bowl at unprecedented prices, while the leaves were still on the trees in Manhattan, was, well, unprecedented. Even taking global warming into account, I thought that this autumnal windfall had to be good news for big-time, big-brand, TV-heavy advertising, which needs all the good news it can get, right?
But then I began to wonder, why? Why, this year in particular, were the mega-brands so quick to commit to spending more money on a half minute of network airtime than it costs to produce most full-length features being screened at Sundance?
They sure weren’t splurging (as they had in prewar, pre–Janet Jackson Nipplegate, dot-com-infatuated 2000) because of a robust economy. Or, one would hope, to jump on the Tom Petty halftime show bandwagon.
No, I realized, Super Bowl advertisers weren’t going for broke because they were flush with fourth-quarter profits, or bullish on the future, or because Fox has a special tie-in program with MySpace.
They were going for broke because they were desperate.
At first glance, it didn’t make a lot of sense. After all, this was advertising’s biggest day of the year, and if the NFL matchup gods cooperated, it had the potential to become its biggest day ever. There wasn’t anything particularly desperate about that.
After all, what was there not to like about having ninety-three million captive, engaged viewers, a third of them women, in more than 63 percent of American homes—all not just watching but anticipating, embracing (to the tune of 99.6 percent audience commercial retention), and critiquing your message? And if they did happen to reach for the dreaded