Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 19, 1993 TAG: 9301190028
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY BRUCE HOROVITZ LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
SUPER BOWL ADS SET RECORD IN `TRIP TO THE JOHN' FINANCING
THE SUPER BOWL is the marketing event of the year. Ad time this year went at the rate of $28,333 per second. Is it worth it? Opinions differ, but all the spots are sold.
Perhaps the oldest Super Bowl tradition - aside from the game often being a dud - is for advertisers to go bonkers trying to out-hype each other.
On Jan. 31, Pasadena, Calif., home of the Rose Bowl, will host what may well be the most commercialized Super Bowl ever. And on Feb. 1, dozens of marketers who spent many millions of dollars trying to catch the consumer's eye may wake up and ask themselves: Why?
"Marketers seem to lose their senses at Super Bowl time," said Jack Trout, president of the Greenwich, Conn.-based corporate image firm Trout & Ries. "More ad money is wasted on Super Bowl day than any other day of the year."
Super Bowl advertisers are shelling out a record $850,000 for 30-second spots. That's $28,333 per second. And that is an awful lot of money "to finance a trip to the john," said Los Angeles ad man and radio commentator Stan Freberg.
Still, NBC has sold all of its available spots.
The Super Bowl is the marketing event of the year. It attracts 120 million viewers - the largest audience of any TV show. And many of the viewers are young males who are otherwise tough to reach.
But a growing number of marketing experts contend that exorbitant media purchases such as the Super Bowl will become increasingly snubbed in the 1990s. Instead, more cost-conscious advertisers will turn to targeted communications such as junk mail, phone calls and faxes. Critics say flashy Super Bowl ads are signs no longer of smart selling, but of corporate ego.
"In the '80s, ego was in, but in the '90s, showing off is a negative, not a positive," said Clive Chajet, chairman of the New York corporate image firm, Lippincott & Margulies.
But the biggest Super Bowl advertiser, Anheuser-Busch, bristles at the notion that ego is behind its extravagant "Bud Bowl V" promotion - its largest production ever.
"Our shareholders would not let us make decisions based on our egos," said August Busch IV, vice president of Budweiser brands and son of the company's chairman.
The 1992 Bud Bowl extravaganza helped boost the company's January beer sales 46 percent over the year before, Busch said. The new spots feature former New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath and "L.A. Law" star Corbin Bernsen coaching animated "teams" of Budweiser and Bud Lite bottles. "The Super Bowl is the place for us to be if we want to sell beer," Busch said.
Indeed, many of the biggest consumer brands have already suited up.
Reebok will introduce a new worldwide campaign and Nike will air new spots. Pepsi has a handful of flashy ads - including several "New Age" ads for its new Crystal Pepsi.
Many will shoulder ad budgets that only a Super Bowl can unleash. Anheuser-Busch has purchased a whopping five minutes of air time and Pepsi has bought four minutes. Miller Brewing spent $3 million for the privilege of calling itself the "official beer" of the Super Bowl.
But Frito-Lay, which is spending an estimated $7 million to sponsor the game's halftime show featuring pop star Michael Jackson, is the biggest overall sponsor of the 1993 Super Bowl.
According to Scott Purvis, president of the Princeton, N.J.-based research firm Gallup & Robinson: "The last thing an advertiser wants to do is to spend $850,000 per 30-second commercial and come away with less-than-favorable ratings."
"If you have a weak commercial, you can waste a ton of money," said Scott Bedbury, director of advertising at Nike, which will run a 90-second commercial that features Michael Jordan and Warner Bros. cartoon character "Marvin the Martian." In the animated spot, which takes place on Mars, Jordan ("His Airness") tries to prove there is air on the planet.
Nike's last Super Bowl spot, featuring Jordan and Bugs Bunny, rated top among consumers polled by USA Today after the game. Bedbury hopes this year's spot creates the same buzz.
But not all ads receive such media attention, despite big production costs. "Some advertisers will spend millions on Spielberg-esque productions," said Russ Klein, senior vice president of marketing at Seven-Up, which will air three spots during the fourth quarter. "I'll never understand those ads that are simply trying to move the needle on the applause meter."
Even fans attending the game will be deluged with marketing, from the parking lot to the sky.
Flying over its first Super Bowl will be the "Bud One" blimp - beaming field shots back to viewers. Fans who page through the biggest-ever Super Bowl program will find more than 100 pages of ads that cost most advertisers $30,000 per page. And in a 700,000-square-foot lot across from the Rose Bowl, an exhibition called the "NFL Experience" will try to lure fans with an amusement park-like football fantasy land to raise money for charity.