Snubbing the TV audience
As many as 98 million people watched the Super Bowl last year. More are expected to tune in this year, but even that number is unlikely to trump the number of people who watched the inauguration of President Barack Obama just a week and a half prior. Perhaps that, alongside ad budget cuts sweeping across the land, is forcing big brands to opt out of the expensive TV spots and hedge their bets on alternatives instead.
ChaCha, an SMS advertising platform, reports that brands like ESPN, which isn’t appearing in a TV spot during the big game, are turning to them to reach that coveted younger demographic in a medium that probably captures their attention more than TV.
But just because some brands are making that call doesn't mean most are following suit. As of Jan. 20, NBC still had as many as 10 or 11 spots left to sell, but just four days before the big game, it had only two.
NBC Sports President Dick Ebersol said the network was able to keep economic concerns at least at an arms length because of an early push on the part of its sales team. With 85 percent of the inventory sold in early September, it "isolated us from a lot of the pain that the rest of the broadcast industry is feeling," he said in a conference call. "This Super Bowl, because it was sold so early, is largely immune to that pressure."
Ebersol said the network has gone through a "tough slog" selling the remaining 15 percent of ad inventory. Moreover, only a dozen of its commercial spots were sold at the $3 million asking price, while all of them have been sold at prices above $2.4 million. When Fox carried the 2008 Super Bowl, it put out an asking price of $2.7 million per spot.
Taking the vote online
There's also a growing field of online properties trying to build up interest in Super Bowl ads by letting people watch and vote on their favorite spots online. AOL's FanHouse is running its Super Sunday Ad Poll where all of the game day ads will be available in their entirety for fans to view, comment, and vote on their favorite commercials.
The ad poll will begin shortly after kick-off and the winning commercial will be announced Monday. AOL said Budweiser's "Rocky" commercial, which won the top spot from last year's game, had more than 40 million streams. YouTube will also be running its Super Bowl AdBlitz where viewers can vote on their favorites.
Despite the doom and gloom that hangs over Wall Street and Main Street these days, there's plenty to suggest that, if done right, the $3 million some brands are plunking down on an ad spot this Sunday could live on for months online after the game is long over and everyone has made their trip to Disneyland.
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Matt Kapko is deputy editor for iMedia Connection.
