Super Bowl Ads: Expensive Art or Giant Waste?
Posted by DDOCS in Economy, tags: Advertising, Economy, Entertainment, Marketing, Media, Money, Social Media, Sports, Technology, Television
AdFreak has a great graphic of what you could buy instead of a Super Bowl commercial. While I don’t like some of the suggestions, the point remains clear: Super Bowl ads are a giant waste of money.
Yes, I know some of them are iconic and some of them are wildly popular. And, the ads are a main reason that people tune into the game. Agencies know the audience numbers are unbeatable on any other day in the modern television landscape. So, the ad dollars makes sense to some companies. (How else would GoDaddy be a household word?) But, most of the ads we’ll see on Super Bowl Sunday will only end up as a blip on our busy, over-programmed, short-attention-span radar.
I don’t begrudge the network for charging the amount they do for the airtime. I’m a firm believer that the free market should decide what the going rate is. If there are companies willing to pay it, then the network should reap the benefits. But, in this recession, does it really seem wise from the company’s perspective to pay $2.6 million for a 30-second spot during the game? Yes, that is over two and a half million dollars!
That’s why Pepsi’s decision to not place Super Bowl ads this year is so great. After almost 25 years of placing ads during the Super Bowl, they have decided to put the money towards a social media campaign. Pepsi usually purchases many 30-second spots during the game, so this is a huge chunk of change the company can use throughout 2010 and beyond. Plus, the announcement has been so startling that Pepsi is now getting more Super Bowl buzz than its rival Coke.
We’ll have to wait until next year to see what effect Pepsi’s pull-out will have on the ad rates. Could this be a trend other companies will follow? Until the economy bounces back and people have jobs again, I sure hope so.
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Ads are a part of culture. By definition, art is created with the excess of a society. When you have extra time from hunting and gathering you can tell a story or paint on the wall of cave. I suppose it should also be part of the society to debate whether we have enough excess to create the art of a thirty second commercial when people are starving. It doesn’t really help the starving people, but it is an interesting conundrum to consider.
Not all the ads will become an enduring part of the culture. The Apple ad did.
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I actually thught the green police ad from Audi was pretty good. Lord knows there are many people who would love to work for the green police to, haha.