The numerical bar is set high for the Super Bowl while the creative bar is often the subject of much debate. On the former front, though, the figures continue to impress. The reported average cost of a :30 timeslot during Fox’s upcoming telecast of Super Bowl XLVIII is a record high $4 million, surpassing last year’s $3.8 million on CBS. The ad space inventory sold out in December.
The big-time numbers also extend to audience reach—particularly in this era of media fragmentation where mega Nielsen ratings are all the more valuable. Last year’s Super Bowl drew 108.4 million viewers, making it the third most watched program in TV history. Still, though, that was a step down from the 2013 Super Bowl telecast which is the first most viewed program. The 2012 Big Game is the second most watched in the annals of television.
As for the ad creative barometer, while the overall crop of Big Game commercials frequently disappoints, there have been some gems in recent years. For example, when SHOOT looked back on 2013’s top commercials, registering in the top five were Dodge RAM’s “Farmer” from The Richards Group, Dallas, and Budweiser’s “Brotherhood” out of Anomaly, NY. Chrysler’s “Born of Fire”—which debuted on the 2011 Super Bowl—went on to win the primetime spot Emmy.
In addition to its much anticipated broadcast on February 2, Fox will be live-streaming Super Bowl XLVIII, marking the third consecutive year the Big Game will be webcast for free to U.S. Internet users. The webcast will also include the halftime show featuring Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Ad lineup
PepsiCo is sponsoring the halftime show and has launched a campaign designed to raise awareness of the event, starting with a TV spot which debuted during the start of the NFL playoffs and depicts in tongue-in-cheek style the origin of halftime. Titled “There Since The First Halftime,” the spot shows a 1920s football game interrupted when a roadster automobile full of women breaks down nearby. They have a supply of Pepsi and the players opt to take a break for 15 minutes. When one player asks another what this respite is called, he responds “halftime.” Kinka Usher of hungry man directed for Denver agency Motive, PepsiCo Beverage is slated to run two :30s during the Big Game out of TBWAChiatDay. Meanwhile, another PepsiCo brand, Doritos from Frito-Lay, will enter the eighth year of its “Crash the Super Bowl contest soliciting user-generated spot entries. The new wrinkle is that for the first time the competition was open to entries from around the world. The final tally saw 4,500-plus spots submitted from more than 30 countries. The field has been narrowed down to five finalists, two of which will air during the Super Bowl telecast—one picked by the voting public, the other by Doritos. The spot getting the most votes online will win its creator $1 million with the runner-up taking $50,000. The creators of these two spots will also win the opportunity to work on the next Avengers movie in some capacity. Among the finalists is a comedy spot which introduces us to a not-so-high-tech finger cleaning system for phalanges that have that yellow hue from popping Doritos into our mouths—it was submitted by Thomas Noakes a director from Sydney. The other finalists are: “Time Machine” from Ryan Thomas Anderson of Scottsdale, Arizona; “Office Thief” from Chris Capel of Valencia, Calif.; “Cowboy Kid” created by Amber and David Gill from Ladera Ranch, Calif.; and “Breakroom Ostrich” from Eric Haviv of Atlanta. Once again assisting the “Crash the Super Bowl” contest is Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.
Another contest—this one initiated by Intuit working with agency RPA—centers around small businesses vying to win a :30 Super Bowl slot. The four Intuit finalists are GoldieBlox, Poop Natural Dairy Compost, Barley Labs dog treats, and egg company Locally Laid.
As in recent years, spots will be previewed or teaser ads will surface online to whet appetites and pique interest in Super Bowl advertising. There’s talk of Old Spice deodorant having a Big Game presence with the next installment of its “Smellcome to Manhood” campaign promoting body sprays that quickly turn teenage boys into men of irresistible appeal to the opposite sex. The first installment, “Momsong,” from Wieden+Kennedy has already made a big impression. (For more on “Momsong,” see this week’s Top Spot of the Week.)
Confirmed for the Super Bowl is Old Spice’s arch body spray adversary when it comes to courting teenage males. Unilever’s Axe is slated to run a Super Bowl :30 out of BBH London. It’s believed to be a cut-down version of a :60 recently showcased on YouTube which introduces the Axe Peace Line. Dictator-type figures appear including a Kim Jong-un lookalike. Yet while it appears they’re about to press the proverbial button ushering in armageddon, the reality turns out to be that love, not war, erupts.
Various first-time Super Bowl advertisers are also in the mix, including: Cheerios from Saatchi NY; Nestle which will roll out its Butterfinger Peanut Butter Cups via Dailey L.A.; and Jaguar which will promote its new F-Type sports coupe via its ad shop Spark 44. Additionally there are the prerequisite first time Super Bowl ad celebrities, including Scarlett Johansson for SodaStream from agency Humanaut, Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report in two :15s for Wonderful Pistachios from The Fire Station, and Laurence Fisburne who will reprise his character Morpheus from The Matrix on behalf of Kia out of DavidandGoliath.
In the Kia spot, Morpheus encounters a couple who are waiting for their car at the valet of a fine restaurant—and mimics the offer of a “red key” or “blue key ” akin to the infamous “red pill or blue pill” Matrix scene with Keanu Reeves. Morpheus then takes the couple on a wild ride. One of the main themes in The Matrix is perception vs. reality. When the movie launched, it sparked people to question what they thought to be true, which is why The Matrix is the perfect parallel to launch the K900 luxury sedan, reasoned the DavidandGoliath creative/strategic team as it positions the K900 to fundamentally alter people’s opinion/perception of what a luxury car is.
Kia and Jaguar are part of this year’s crop of car advertisers slated for a Super Bowl run. Others include Audi via Venables, Bell & Partners, San Francisco, which has a :60; Chevrolet out of Commonwealth, Detroit; Hyundai which has a pair of spots slated from agency Innocean; Toyota via Saatchi LA; and Volkswagen with a :60 from Deutsch LA. Plus there’s the overriding question of Chrysler and Wieden+Kennedy again have something cooking for Super Sunday.
Wieden+Kennedy has also been attached to Coca-Cola in the past for the Super Bowl. Coke is again scheduled for the Big Game.
The perennial big-time returnee typically with the most spots on Super Sunday is Anheuser-Busch InBev which is the game’s exclusive beer advertiser through 2015. While it’s not yet known how many spots are on tap this time around, last year A-B InBev ran six commercials totaling four-and-a-half minutes. The lead agency on A-B InBev is Energy BBDO.
Another staple of the Super Bowl ad lineup are promo/trailer-style spots for major motion pictures. Paramount is expected to run a :30 heralding Transformers: Age of Extinction, for example.
Also returning to the Big Game fray is GoDaddy with a pair of :30s from Deutsch New York.
In the offing is a yogurt war with a Chobani spot out of Droga5 and an Oikos (Dannon) :30. Mars will again be at the Big Game with a likely spot from BBDO.
Turbo Tax is also slated to present a commercial from Wieden+Kennedy.
And H&M will have a spot starring soccer hunk David Beckham. The new twist is that select Samsung Smart TV viewers will be able to use their remote controls to engage with the spot via Delivery Agent technology and directly order on screen various items from Beckham’s Bodywear line of apparel.
