Message From Michael 
February 2, 2009
THE SUPERBOWL EDITION
TWO NOBODIES FROM NOWHERE
THE THREE SCREEN EFFECT
SHOW ME THE MONEY
SPORTS COCKTAIL CHATTER
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TWO NOBODIES FROM NOWHERE IN SUPERBOWL: First off, let’s just say upfront that it was a great game. But even greater may be the fact that two unemployed brothers from
THE THREE SCREEN EFFECT: As usual it’s not just the nearly 100 Million TV viewers that the advertisers are trying to score with. It’s what happens on-line as well as on air as well as in hand with mobile downloads. As AdAge says in an article questioning whether the $3 Million is worth it, the ads pay off with Web traffic, publicity and sales. Analysts with Google say, for example, that four out of five advertisers (84%) in last year’s Super Bowl had a URL in their ad while 70% launched search campaigns in conjunction with their ad campaign. WebProNews notes that even businesses not advertising during the Super Bowl can take advantage of Super Bowl mania by taking advantage of Search Engine Optimization techniques like tagging and linking Super Bowl related articles on their websites. Website ‘hoster’ GoDaddy.com produced TV spots that specifically drove viewers to its website to see the conclusion of the ads using sexual innuendo (something which several critics say dominated this year’s ads, along with physical humor.) Stealing a page from the GoDaddy handbook, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) produced several “Veggie Love” spots which were banned by the network because of their sexual innuendo and got exactly what PETA wanted – upwards of a million views on-line. Meanwhile San-Francisco based Common Sense Media released a report timed with the Super Bowl slamming the NFL sports programming for airing ads “hugely inappropriate for a family audience.”
Of course when you saw the headline three screen, you probably thought I would be talking about the first ever 3D spots during the Super Bowl. PCMag has a lengthy article explaining how the new 3D used in the Super Bowl spots differs from the old style. A co-operative effort between Intel and Dreamworks, the ads used a different technique nicknamed InTru3D which PCMag explains differs from the Red and Blue color variation used in previous 3D efforts and which will be used in the movie Monsters and Aliens. You can see it for yourself on line. Sobe beverage drink has drawn numerous on-line views as well as the on air spot for its 3D ads in the Super Bowl. As unusual as the 3D ads was the Super Bowl’s first one-second ad – a glimpse of the Miller Beer delivery man yelling “High Life.”
SHOW ME THE MONEY: In something of a counter-point to AdAge’s point about the value of the $3 Million ads, AdWeek injects a note of reality. No, they didn’t all cost $3 Million. Long-time advertisers Anheuser Busch and PepsiCo paid closer to $2.4 Million, in part because of their long relationship and their “bulk buy.” In actual fact, NBC’s VP of Sales confirmed that most of the ads were in the $2.8 Million to $2.9 Million range, which is still up five percent and more from last year’s $2.7 Million on FOX. Not surprising in this economic climate. Also not surprising is the defection of some traditional Super Bowl advertisers, including American car manufacturers General Motors and Ford. Instead, you saw ads from Hyundai which enlisted Inaugural Day cellist Yo Yo Ma and Audi which did a parody of movie race car scenes. Several publications have noted that NBC had a slower time selling spots this year, with several spots still available up until the last week before the game.
COUNTER PROGRAMMING: As a side note, other networks counter-programmed the Super Bowl with “bowls” of their own. Animal Planet once again ran its “Puppy Bowl” featuring puppies rescued from animal shelters as well as singing parrot and other animals. ABC aired the “Wipeout Bowl” featuring some couch potatoes competing against some very fit cheerleaders. The WE network went with “Super Bawl Sunday” with back to back tear jerker movies. In a similar vein, playing off movies, AMC had the “Death Wish Bowl” with Charles Bronson movies.
SPORTS COCKTAIL CHATTER. Okay, so I did this last week, but hey, I ran across some more interesting factoids. For example, the latest Harris Interactive Poll shows that Pro Football is Americans’ favorite sport, with a third (31%) picking it as their favorite. That’s twice as many as picked “America’s national past time”, Baseball (16%), two and a half times more than College Football (12%), nearly four times more than auto racing (8%) which actually beat out Pro Basketball in popularity (6%), which was only slightly ahead of Hockey (5%) which tied with Men’s College Basketball (5%) but which beat out Men’s Golf (4%). Adding to the controversy over national past time, baseball has dropped seven points in popularity since the poll was first taken in 1985 while football has risen seven points. As a side note, only Women’s Tennis scored anything in the popularity contest with a dismal one percent citing it as their favorite sport. None of the other women’s sports (pro basketball, college basketball, soccer or golf) scored at all.
However, for a little more perspective on this, reporter Bryan Curtis had an interesting analysis in The Week In Review section of this Sunday’s New York Times. The National Football League argues its case, citing the fact that pro football scores in TV ratings (with a wide margin over baseball and other sports) as well as in game attendance (with games 90% of capacity) and the highest revenues ($7 Billion in 2007, a Billion ahead of Baseball). But Major League Baseball has some numbers of its own with 78.5 Million attendance at MLB games in 2008, compared to the NFL’s 17 Million, and that doesn’t include Minor League Baseball’s attendance of 43.2 Million. Basketball aficionados can cite the fact that there are more people who claim to be basketball players (25.9 Million) than in any other sport, including Dribbler In Chief Barack Obama. Worldwide, the International Basketball Federation estimates that 450 Million people play the game, and the National Basketball Association claims 1.76 Billion TV viewers worldwide.
FOOTNOTE: Obviously with all the focus on the Super Bowl, a lot of other news was left out. So look for an updated Message from Michael shortly.
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