Expanding the :30 Super Bowl Spot
From Garrick Schmitt for Advertising Age -
The teams playing in this year’s Super Bowl have already been decided, but the Super Bowl shuffle for advertisers began in earnest last month when marketing mainstays like FedEx, General Motors and Pepsi made news by announcing they were opting out of this year’s ad extravaganza.
But for those looking to gauge the health of the ad industry, Super Bowl advertising is a bit of red herring. CBS is charging about $2.5 million for 30 seconds of commercial time — and rightly so. Rarely do you get so many Americans watching one event and actually enjoying the advertising. It’s a tremendous opportunity for most brand marketers and we’d be foolish to look at this year’s Super Bowl as proof of either the rejuvenation of the 30-second spot or the rejection of it.
That doesn’t mean some won’t try. After all, last year Hulu saw a 50% increase in site traffic after running ads during the Super Bowl and Denny’s traffic to its website soared nearly 1,700% as consumers sought information about its free breakfast promotion.
There certainly will be advertising winners (and losers) on Super Bowl Sunday but let’s hope that the Monday morning quarterback chatter doesn’t obscure the larger shift at hand for marketers this year. 2010 will be the year of the “platform” for advertisers. Read Rest of Article
