What a difference a year makes. At the beginning of 2000, NASDAQ was riding high, venture capital for proposed Web sites seemed readily available, and 17 of the 36 advertisers on the Super Bowl were dot-com companies.
Today, NASDAQ is feeling the squeeze, Internet investment bucks have become far more scarce, and Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa—to be telecast Jan. 28, on CBS—will have but three dot-com sponsors: E*Trade, Monster. com and Hotjobs.com.
Each member of that select trio is a returning Super Sunday advertiser, showing that a Big Game ad time buy can still prove prudent. But the falling by the wayside of most dot-com advertisers on Super Sunday this year has had a ripple effect, paving the way for mainstay, traditional marketers to have a major presence—a presence often entailing more than a single spot.
Additionally, the absence of dot-com companies upping the ante for hotly contested airtime on the Super Bowl has helped to keep the cost of 30-second slots pretty much on par with last year. CBS is reportedly fetching between $2.3 million and $2.4 million on average for 30 seconds of airtime. Last year, ABC commanded $2.2 million, which was a dot-com-generated quantum leap—37 percent—over the $1.6 million per :30 that the FOX network garnered in ’99.
At the same time, the still-whopping $2.3-million-to-$2.4-million average underscores the Super Bowl’s continually growing value to the ad sector. The Big Game provides a commodity that has become increasingly rare in an era of heightened media fragmentation: a mainstream event that delivers a mega audience and, most importantly, is something that Americans are sure to talk about at water coolers come Monday morning. And unlike with any other media event, that talk is often about the commercials.
With traditional advertisers again dominating the spotlight, perennial Super Bowl agency BBDO New York has an even more far-reaching presence this year, sporting such clients as Federal Express; Visa; Cingular Wireless (with BBDO Atlanta also involved); the new Snickers Cruncher bar, an M&M/Mars product; Pizza Hut; Frito-Lay; and Pepsi Cola.
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As usual, during this pre-pre-game juncture, many advertisers, agencies, production houses, post shops and other support services are reticent about their Super Bowl projects. Nonetheless, through the industry grapevine and other circuitous routes, SHOOT garnered details and credits for some of what might emerge during the Super Bowl telecast.
This marks the third consecutive year that Monster.com has advertised on the Super Bowl. However, the first two installments were created by Wenham, Mass.-based agency Mullen. This time around, Arnold Communications, Boston, has conceptualized a campaign that currently consists of five spots, two of which will run during the Big Game. The campaign is said to offer vignettes spotlighting work life, with parallels to life overall. The Monster.com work on the Super Bowl was directed by Kinka Usher of House of Usher Films, Santa Monica.
Arnold also figures prominently on Super Sunday with a :60 and two :30s for first-time Big Game advertiser Volkswagen. VW paid to be the exclusive automobile advertiser on the Super Bowl. A pair of the VW ads—"Bear" and "Wedding"—was directed by Dante Ariola of bicoastal/international Propaganda Films. Word is that Mike Mills of The Directors Bureau, Hollywood, helmed the other VW commercial.
VW isn’t the only big-name advertiser to make its Super Bowl debut. Levi’s is airing a :30, the centerpiece of a three-part story out of TBWA/Chiat/ Day, San Francisco. The Levi’s fare was helmed by the Traktor collective, out of bicoastal/international Partizan . The :30 is this week’s SHOOT "Top Spot" (see separate story, p. 12).
While Levi’s and VW mark their first entrées into the Super Sunday lineup, familiar Big Game sponsors abound. Anheuser-Busch again has bought the most Super Bowl time, four minutes for eight :30s—but which ones? The company is sticking to its modus operandi of recent years: producing assorted prospective ads, and waiting a few days prior to Super Sunday to choose which will air and from what agencies—Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco; DDB Chicago; The Leap Partnership, Chicago (Michelob); and/or Fusion Idea Lab, Chicago.
On the high-profile list of prospective Anheuser-Busch spots is more "Whassup" work for Budweiser. At press time, DDB Chicago was filming some new "Whassup" ads in New York. While the "Whassup" fare has been the province of its originator, director Charles Stone III of Storm Films, Brooklyn, it wasn’t known at press time whether he was helming the latest batch. Stone’s schedule has been dominated by the production of Paid in Full, the working title of his feature-directing debut for Dimension Films. Because of Stone’s feature commitment, a couple of just-debuted "Whassup" ads—"Bird’s The Word" and "Language Tape"—were directed by Craig Gillespie of bicoastal Morton Jankel Zander.
Other Budweiser candidates for Super Bowl exposure include work directed by Buddy Cone of Los Angeles-based Palomar Pictures, and by Dave Merhar of bicoastal HSI Productions. The Merhar- and Cone-helmed projects are for DDB Chicago. (Merhar is also a principal in the aforementioned ad shop Fusion Idea Lab.)
Presumably the Goodby work up for consideration is more Budweiser "Lizards" fare, which in the past has been directed by Tom Routson, from bicoastal Tool of North America, with visual effects by Venice, Calif.-based Digital Domain.
PepsiCo purchased the second-largest amount of airtime on the Super Bowl—three minutes. Among the PepsiCo products that might be promoted by BBDO New York in ads during the Big Game are: Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Pepsi One, the new Sierra Mist drink and Frito-Lay. Joe Pytka of Venice-based PYTKA directed some of the Pepsi work. Michael Bay—who recently partnered in his own Los Angeles-based, as-yet-unnamed commercial production company with executive producer Scott Gardenhour—also directed Pepsi fare, which could surface on Super Sunday. Word is that Samuel Bayer of bicoastal Mars Media directed the Sierra Mist spot.
Bayer also helmed Cingular Wireless for BBDO, New York and Atlanta. Cingular is a joint venture of BellSouth and SBC Communications.
Continuing with the BBDO New York menu, Jesse Dylan of bicoastal Straw Dogs directed a Pizza Hut commercial for Super Sunday. And word is that Tool of North America’s Erich Joiner helmed a Visa ad for BBDO, in which a woman is seen vacuuming around her oblivious husband, who is glued to the TV set. His fate: being sucked up by the vacuum cleaner. Visual effects were done at Rhinoceros Effects, New York.
Additionally for BBDO New York, Bryan Buckley of bicoastal/international hungry man directed a Federal Express :30.
Hungry man also figures prominently in encore performances for Super Bowl advertisers. As he did last year, Buckley is directing work for E*Trade via Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco. E*Trade has a pair of :30s scheduled, as well as sponsorship of the halftime show. For the 2000 Super Bowl, Buckley’s endeavors included E*Trade’s "Monkey" (SHOOT "Top Spot," 2/4/00, p. 14).
Meanwhile, Buckley’s hungry man colleague John O’Hagan has directed a :60 for high-tech company EDS via Fallon, Minneapolis. EDS, Fallon and O’Hagan made a major splash with their lauded "Cat Herders" spot (with visual effects by Venice-based Sight Effects), which premiered during last year’s Super Bowl telecast.
Larry Frey of bicoastal/international @radical.media directed a :30 for Hotjobs.com, out of Weiss Stagliano Partners, New York. Slated to break during the third quarter of the game, the ad features a desk toy—a row of hanging silver balls clacking back and forth, pendulum-style—that breaks away from the workplace to find its own destiny. One of the balls eventually rolls out onto the street, catching the eye of some kids playing marbles. The action unfolds to the tune of The Mamas & the Papas’ "Go Where You Wanna Go."
Malcolm Venville of bicoastal Anonymous directed three :30s—"Walden Pond," "8,500" and "Inaugural"—for Merrill Lynch via J. Walter Thompson, New York. The campaign is tagged with the "One simple fee for a more simple life" slogan. "Walden Pond," for example, touches upon Thoreau and searching for a simpler life.
Also slated to air on Super Sunday is a PaineWebber spot helmed by Phil Joanou of Villains, bicoastal and Chicago, for Saatchi & Saatchi, New York.
Other advertisers scheduled for Super Bowl exposure include: Accenture, formerly Arthur Andersen Consulting, which is running four spots to alert prospective customers to its new moniker, via Young & Rubicam, New York; a new :30 in MasterCard’s "Priceless" campaign, from McCann-Erickson, New York; and movie studio spots promoting new releases from Sony Pictures, MGM, Universal and Warner Bros.
For those with a tongue-in-cheek network-programming perspective, the Super Bowl can be viewed as a megabuck lead-in to another big ticket TV event—the second-season premiere of Survivor, immediately following the post-game show. Survivor: The Australian Outback is generating its own field of premium-paying advertisers for CBS. Among them is PepsiCo’s Mountain Dew (normally a Super Bowl sponsor) out of BBDO New York, and Target via Minneapolis ad agency Peterson Milla Hooks.
