Commercial downturn
The economic downturn has not greatly affected the sale of Super Bowl ads, which run about $100,000 a second. While some companies, such as Victoria’s Secret, General Motors and FedEx, are bowing out, others are going full bore.
Anheuser-Busch, Pepsi, and H&R Block are among the companies willing to pay top dollar to run commercials during the premier televised sports event of the year. The Super Bowl is expected to draw upwards to a hundred million viewers.
Commercials that will air on the Super Bowl will eschew the edgy and concentrate on the cute. Five ads, from Heineken Pedigree, Career Builder, GoDaddy, and Pepsi, were available for preview
The Heineken commercial featured a gentleman outside, then aside a bar talking about beer as destiny, and then beer as a sword. “Wield it with honor, or cut yourself off.” Heineken is therefore related to a phallic symbol, along with male fear of castration.
The Pedigree commercial featured a series of vignettes of the difficulties people who own a rhinoceros, ostrich, warthog and a bull and the difficulties they therefore have. The message is that it is best to have a dog because they are less trouble and one can buy Pedigree dog food for them. There is not rhino, ostrich, warthog, or bull food on the pet food market.
Career Builder ad touts the joy of leaving a horrible job to find a new one, which may be somewhat out of synch with the times considering that there are more and more people who have no job and would like to experience the joy of having any job. For the record, during the time I was a cubical drone, I tended to day dream that I was in a gondola, drifting down the Grand Canal in Venice, something I have actually experienced and would like to again.
The GoDaddy ad seemed to try to depict something that was a combination of a US Senate hearing and a game show. The female actors were appropriately busty, but one had to pay real close attention to see that the ad was about a web hosting company.
The Pepsi commercial had a series of vignettes depicting men who suffer horrible accidents due to the folly of others. The message is that men are tough enough to endure anything except a bad diet soda. No doubt many people will find this ad amusing, but I tend to equate male toughness to other things besides getting nominated for a Darwin Award because one’s friends are imbeciles.
No doubt there will be a few gems and some duds as commercials tucked in during the Super Bowl. If the past is any guide, some of the best will be talked about long after the game play is a fading memory.
Source: Super Bowl Commercials Preview, Scott Mayerowitz, ABC News, January 29th, 2009
