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    Intuit Plans Small Business Super Bowl Ad Competition For 2nd Straight Year

    By SHOOTUpdated:No Comments2047 Views
    In this Jan. 13, 2014, file photo, Beau Lewis, GoldieBlox chief marketing officer, puts together a Goldie Blox's Spinning Machine toy set, in Pasadena, Calif., before a film crew films a commercial for his company. GoldieBlox won last year's Intuit Small Business Big Game competition in which small companies vied for a 30-second spot during Super Bowl 49. The software maker is planning its second competition, which will begin June 1, 2015. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)

    By Joyce M. Rosenberg, Business Writer

    NEW YORK (AP) --

    Intuit is looking to draft another small business for some air time in football's biggest game.

    The maker of QuickBooks accounting software is planning its second competition in which small companies will vie for a 30-second spot in Super Bowl 50 on Feb. 7. The winner will get the kind of exposure that big brands like Budweiser, Chevrolet and Microsoft pay millions to get.

    The contest begins June 1 with companies submitting stories about their businesses and why they should be showcased during the most widely viewed television event of the year. The submissions are then voted on by the public and Intuit employees.

    The winner of the first contest, toy maker GoldieBlox, saw its sales soar after it won Intuit's competition and had a commercial in the 2014 Super Bowl, says Lindsey Shepard, vice president of sales and marketing for the Oakland, California, company.

    "Within the first 15 seconds, we had tens of thousands of people visiting the website," she says. The ad, which can be seen on YouTube, shows girls getting rid of their traditional toys like dollhouses.

    The toy maker, which beat out 15,000 other companies, doubled its staff and signed up with a second factory in China, Shepard says. GoldieBlox toy sets include a book, blocks, wheels, cranks and other parts that children can use to build structures with moving parts. They're aimed at piquing girls' interest in building things.

    Super Bowl ads get almost as much attention as the game itself. Viewers post comments on social media, and the ads are a topic of conversation when people get to work the next day. A Budweiser ad featuring a Labrador retriever puppy and Clydesdale horses has gotten more than 60 million views on YouTube.

    This year's Super Bowl had an audience of 114.4 million people and set a record for the most-watched event in U.S. television history. A 30-second commercial cost $4.5 million.

    The commercial for the contest-winning company will be created by the advertising agency RPA, which produced the GoldieBlox ad. The winning small business will be chosen through four rounds of voting. There will be three companies in the final round, and the winner will be chosen by the public.

    Category:News
    Tags:GoldiebloxIntuitSuper Bowl



    A Closer Look At Proposed Measures Designed To Curb Google’s Search Monopoly

    Thursday, November 21, 2024

    U.S. regulators are proposing aggressive measures to restore competition to the online search market after a federal judge ruled Google maintained an illegal monopoly for the last decade.

    The sweeping set of recommendations filed late Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice could radically alter Google's business, including possibly spinning off the Chrome web browser and syndicating its search data to competitors. Even if the courts adopt the blueprint, Google isn't likely to make any significant changes until 2026 at the earliest, because of the legal system's slow-moving wheels.

    Here's what it all means:

    What is the Justice Department's goal?
    Federal prosecutors are cracking down on Google in a case originally filed during near the end of then-President Donald Trump's first term. Officials say the main goal of these proposals is to get Google to stop leveraging its dominant search engine to illegally squelch competition and stifle innovation.

    "The playing field is not level because of Google's conduct, and Google's quality reflects the ill-gotten gains of an advantage illegally acquired," the Justice Department asserted in its recommendations. "The remedy must close this gap and deprive Google of these advantages."

    Not surprisingly, Google sees things much differently. The Justice Department's "wildly overbroad proposal goes miles beyond the Court's decision," Kent Walker, Google's chief legal officer, asserted in a blog post. "It would break a range of Google products — even beyond search — that people love and find helpful in their everyday lives."

    It's still possible that the Justice Department could ease off on its attempts to break up Google, especially if President-elect Donald Trump... Read More

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