Super Bowl advertising (2005)

Advertisers at this year’s Super Bowl will spend $2.4 million to reach the 90 million people in the television audience for 30 seconds. That figure is up slightly from the $2.3 million they spent last year. Traditionally, the Super Bowl draws the single largest television audience of any show during the year. Here is a Wall Street Journal article about advertising for this year’s game — and not just the television kind. The Super Bowl provides a major opportunity for what is known as “event marketing.” This means that advertisers take advantage of a crowd people that might be friendly toward their product. As the article explains:

It all might seem like small potatoes compared with the splashy commercials that have turned the Super Bowl into the ad industry’s annual showcase. This year, a 30-second spot during the game will be seen by an estimated 90 million viewers at an average cost to the advertiser of $2.4 million.

But as consumers get ever more savvy and ad-resistant, marketers are diverting bigger chunks of their ad budgets to individual, hands-on marketing experiences. Strangely enough, it makes sense to bring these personalized product pitches to the Super Bowl: Like home viewers who shush their friends during commercial breaks, people at the Super Bowl tend to be in a marketing-friendly mood.

But, if you are still interested in the television stuff, an impressive archive of information about Super Bowl advertising — including some of the ads themselves — can be found at SuperBowl-Ads.com.

(Posted Jan. 24, 2005)

Tags: Super Bowl