Saints ‘Aint’ Only Big Winner In Super Bowl
Words of the Day
“The Super Bowl remains the premier advertising showcase of the year. You can’t ignore it.” – Steven Schreibman, ad and marketing executive, best-selling author
Saints & Ads Win Big In Most Watched TV Show In History
The New Orleans Saints were not the only winner in Super Bowl XLIV – the ads scored big, too. And they did it in the most watched television show in history. Super Bowl XLIV had 106.5 million viewers according to Nielsen Media, smashing the old record of viewers for a single television program. The previous record was held by the series finale of M*A*S*H, which brought in 105.97 million viewers when it finally went off the air. The record had stood up for decades, and had often been compared to sports records that people thought would never fall. Last year’s Super Bowl almost scored the record, but finished with only 98.7 million viewers when the final tally was calculated.
The Super Bowl ads were by-and-large Super-b! Despite some duds, they ad-ded great entertainment to the greatest show on turf! Here are WordSmith’s studs & duds in no particular order:
Best
♦ All the Doritos spots, but especially the dog shock collar and Ninja locker room chip thrower commercial.
♦ E-Trade baby and his merry band of toddlers … and love the “milkaholic!”
♦ Budweiser Cleidesdale befriending a young longhorn (animals and babies always are big winners in the Super Bowl ad bananza).
♦ Mars spot where Betty White eats a Snickers bar and morphs into boyfriend who wins the backyard football game.
♦ In many ways Google stole the show. Remarkable in its simplicity, it effectively resonated and reflected the brand promise through a hip love story strung together by Google searches. Viewers were taken to Paris initially for study abroad, but quickly moved to cafes, chocolates, a relationship, flights, churches and finally how to assemble a crib – never leaving the Google site itself. Brilliant!
Worst
♦ All those pantless peeps in the Dockers and Career Builder ads. Half naked men running through a field chanting “I wear no pants” had WordSmith really scratching his head … and heading for a bathroom break!
♦ Joe Montana and Sketchers … never the twain should meet!
♦ The Charles Barkley Taco Bell spot … Sir Charles really can’t rhyme or sing. WordSmith wonders how many gorditos and takes it took for this gem. Have we really fallen this far from sports stardom? Apparantly!
To view a listing of the best and worst Super Bowl ads, rated in real time by viewers, check out the USA TODAY Ad Meter.
Record Ad Time
It was also a record time for ads during the Super Bowl telecast, according to Kantar Media. CBS aired nearly 48 minutes of advertising messages, almost three minutes more than the 2009 game, which held the previous record. The figures include paying sponsors, messages from the NFL and promotional plugs for upcoming CBS shows.
There were 41 paid advertisers in the game that aired a total of 66 different messages. The top four advertisers in terms of total ad time were Anheuser-Busch InBev, Hyundai, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. This group accounted for 25 percent of the total paid ad time.
There were nine first-time advertisers in the game: Electronic Arts; Focus on the Family; Google, HomeAway.com; KGB (Knowledge Generation Bureau); Monsanto, Papa John’s; Skechers USA and Qualcomm’s Flo TV service, according to Kantar.
There were seven 15-second spots in the game, the most since 2002.
Dot-coms were the biggest category in this year’s game with five minutes and 45 seconds of time, followed by autos and beer, each with 5:30.
Motion pictures had their smallest footprint in at least a decade, with just two minutes and 45 seconds of time, compared to seven minutes last year.
Golden Mic
Each week, Wordsmith will bestow a Golden Mic Award to the person, group or company in the court of public opinion that best exemplifies the tenets of solid PR, marketing and advertising – and those who don’t. Stay tuned … and step-up to the mic!
The WordSmith News Bureau is based at Deane Smith Media Innovations, a full-service PR, marketing and advertising agency. Got PR? Need marketing strategy? Ad consulting? Message Wordsmithing? Creative & online initiatives? Reach the WordSmith at wordsmith@deanesmithmedia.com