Think Tank Super Bowl Marketing Preview

On Super Bowl Sunday, Fox will run 42 30 second spots taking in $2.7 million a pop. Marketers will spend almost $115 million in renting the Fox Super Bowl media channel. Add in production costs and agency fees, and we are looking at nearly $150 million spent on traditional broadcast ads during a three hour period. Here is my marketing prediction (game prediction below): The vast majority of this money will be wasted and it will be a poor choice of marketing tactic.

Next week we will look at some of the specific ads and discuss how that investment could have been better spent by creating a Private Media channel rather than renting the most expensive channel available.

To be fair, there is significant brand value in running these ads. You get tons of free press as wiseasses like me will be reviewing them the next day. Also, unlike the old days, you can now create a viral campaign around them with online video and other Web 2.0 tactics. However, the total cost of over 3 million for 30 seconds is insane considering what else you can do with that money.

Super Bowl Sunday has become a national holiday and many people watch the game with a group of friends who they really want to be with as opposed to other holidays when you are trapped with your relatives. Commercial breaks are used for eating, drinking, bathroom runs and socializing. You really don’t have the rapt attention of a room full a buzzed people, and they not in a shopping/buying mode.

Most of the ads are over-produced “branding” ads that do little to tell potential buyers the benefits of the product or service. Sometimes you can’t even tell who is sponsoring the ad until the end. This is when agencies pull out the stops to win awards and stroke egos.

Check back next week and the Think Tank team will let you know which ads we liked, which were a waste of money, and more importantly, how a Private Media Channel implementing any number of custom media solutions would have been a stronger, more measurable media investment.