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Super ads coming Sunday
January 29, 2004
It has been 20 years since Apple Computer turned
the Super Bowl of football into the Super Bowl
of advertising.
Apple's commercial for the 1984 game not only
launched the Mac with a splash but also became
the first ``event'' ad. Directed by filmmaker
Ridley Scott, it was a huge leap forward in
creativity and style as a buff, blond freedom
fighter freed the masses from the grip of big,
slow-moving, hard-to-use PCs.
With a huge audience -- 88.6 million viewers
last year, the most of any TV show -- the Super
Bowl has always been a destination spot for
aggressive advertisers. But since that ``1984''
spot, the game -- which airs Sunday -- has become
the television event on which advertisers go
for the ambitious and the inventive.
While the notion that lots of people watch
the game strictly for the ads is a myth -- most
still tune in for the football -- viewers don't
immediately head for the bathroom during breaks.
That's because the advertising is often more
memorable than the games themselves. Many people
still remember, fondly, spots such as Apple's
2001 pitch with H.A.L. the computer from ``2001:
A Space Odyssey'' and the string of Budweiser
ads featuring Louis the Lizard that began in
1995.
The ad blitz probably reached its heyday in
the late 1990s with a flood of spots from the
then-high-riding dot.coms and other high tech
companies. It seemed, for a while, that you
couldn't really be called a player in the tech
world unless you poured your advertising dollars
into creating and airing a special Super Bowl
ad.
In recent years, though, the Super Bowl ad
mania has calmed. The dot.com bust knocked out
the techies. Sept. 11 took the edge off.
Some companies discovered, to their dismay,
that people remembered the ads -- but couldn't
recall the product or firms they were touting.
In 2000, for example, everyone loved the ``herding
cats'' and dancing monkey ads. Almost no one
could you, after the fact, that they were made
to promote EDS and E*trade.
And a few big advertisers, such as Coca-Cola
and McDonald's, shy away from the game itself
because so much attention is paid to the ads
with major newspapers rating their quality the
next day. ``The scrutiny of the creativeness
of the ads in the Super Bowl has driven some
advertisers away,'' said Ed Eerhardt, president
of ABC/ESPN Sports Marketing, recently in MediaWeek,
a magazine that tracks TV trends.
But, said Donna Wolfe, an executive with the
Universal McCann ad agency, ``there is still
nothing else like the Super Bowl. It's watercooler,
it's an event.
So, once again, advertisers are paying an average
$2.3 million to CBS for one of the forty 30-second
spots, up from $833,000 in current dollars in
1984. And a number of them are going for the
bling bling in trying to grab the viewers' attention:
• Apple: There have been rumors
for some time that Apple would air a homage
to its 1994 ad this year. But, as of press time,
it had not purchased time. The company will
be represented, however, in one of the spots
from Pepsi-Cola. Mildly subversive, the ad features
20 teenagers who were sued by the recording
industry for illegally downloading music on
the Internet with Green Day doing its version
of ``I Fought the Law (And the Law Won).'' It's
all part of a new campaign in which the soft
drink giant will give away 100 million free
downloads from Apple's online music store, iTunes.
• Tech: The tech companies are
still in the game, although not in the numbers
they were just a couple of years ago. IBM will
do a pitch for its Linux programming system
with Muhammad Ali and the blonde-haired boy
from previous Linux ads. Monster Worldwide is
back with a couple of monster.com ads -- which
in the past have been very distinctive. Both
are built around people getting ready for their
first day of work.
And America Online is touting its TopSpeed
download technology with three spots (and sponsorship
of the halftime show) featuring the feudin'
and fussin' Teutul family from ``American Chopper,''
the Discovery Channel's hit show.
• Anheuser-Busch: The beer maker,
which has more ad time Sunday (five minutes)
than anyone else, has been the most consistent
player in the Super Bowl ad game over the years,
with such memorable campaigns as the talking
frogs and the ``Whassssup?'' dudes. But its
last two great ads have both involved the Budweiser
Clydesdales: 2002's lump-in-the-throat tribute
to the victims of Sept. 11 and last year's ad
with a zebra checking out an instant replay
during a Clydesdale football game.
This year, the Bud spot will have a donkey
dreaming of becoming a Clydesdale.
• Frito-Lay: The snack company,
part of the Pepsi empire, has a very funny ad
showing two barely mobile senior citizens fighting
over a bag of Lay's potato chips.
• Pespi-Cola: In addition to the
iTunes campaign ad, Pepsi will have another
2 1/2 minutes of ad time. The most distinctive
of its other spots: a ``Gladiator''-style showdown
involving Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Pink
and Enrique Iglesias in warrior gear. Pink is
downright scary in armored plate.
• H&R Block: Willie Nelson,
who has had some rather public set-tos with
the Internal Revenue Service, is back pitching
the tax service in a clever ad. It features
the country singer doing an infomercial selling
his talking Willie Nelson advise doll -- which,
of course, gives lousy tax advise.
• Staples: Making its Super Bowl
debut, Staples Inc. has a nice spot in which
a greedy worker parcels out office supplies
in exchange for bribes. He is set right by veteran
character actor Joe Viterelli, the hulking gangster
from ``Analyze This.''
• Drugs: It's hard to know what
to say about the fact that two competing makers
of erectile dysfunction drugs, Cialis
and Levitra, both have ads on Sunday's game.
Levitra, your official NFL erectile
dysfunction drug, has as its spokesman Hall
of Famer Mike Ditka -- the first guy anyone
would turn to for medical advise.
source:-http://www.mercurynews.com
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