After three unusual years, it will be back to the basics for Super Bowl advertising. When the Oakland Raiders meet the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a game televised by ABC this evening, ads with celebrities and plenty of laughs will be the order of the day.
Viewers who tune in Super Bowl XXXVII should see crooners Celine Dion (DaimlerChrysler), Willie Nelson (H&R Block) and Ozzy Osbourne (Pepsi Twist), not to mention the tag-team of Michael Jordan and Jackie Chan promoting Hanes underwear. Jordan will also play basketball with his younger self in an ad for Gatorade.
PHOTO: NY TIMES
In 2002, some advertisers showed restraint. The nation was still reeling from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and the economy was sluggish. The previous two years featured the rise and fall of dot-coms. By one count, the Super Bowl in 2000 featured ads from 17 Internet companies, some never heard of before -- or heard from again. Just three dot-com companies ran ads in 2001.
The Super Bowl in 2003 is shaping up as a throwback, with familiar companies advertising familiar products.
"We'll see a lot of ads for cars, beer, soda, and a lot of Hollywood superhero movies," said Paul Allen, chief executive of Watertown ad agency Allen & Gerritsen.
"This year, we're back to 1999," said cofounder Seth Siegel of the Beanstalk Group, a licensing agency.
The 2003 lineup includes such Super Bowl regulars as Federal Express, PepsiCo and Anheuser-Busch Co. One Anheuser-Busch spot with the Clydesdale horses was created by Boston ad agency Hill Holliday.
Another Boston ad agency, Arnold Worldwide, created an ad for Monster, the careers Web site based in Maynard. This will be Monster's fifth Super Bowl.
Known for athletic footwear and apparel, Reebok International Ltd of Canton will be in the game for the first time since 1994. Quizno's, the submarine sandwich chain, ran its first Super Bowl ad last year and is making a return appearance this year.
While most other economic indicators are nowhere near the peaks reached at the height of the Internet boom in early 2000, the average cost of a 30-second Super Bowl ad has returned to the levels of three years ago.
Sixty spots and
86.8m viewers
According to AdAge.com, the Web site of Advertising Age magazine, the average cost of a spot is US$2.1 million, up 10 percent. ABC has said it is nearly sold out of the roughly 60 commercial spots in what is likely to be the most watched TV program of the year. According to Nielsen Media Research, 86.8 million viewers tuned in last year's Super Bowl.
Higher Super Bowl prices reflect a more optimistic outlook for the ad industry. In 2002, US ad spending rose 1.5 percent, estimated CMR. A media tracking firm, CMR projects a 3.3 percent rise to US$117.5 billion in 2003.
A year ago, Lisa Unsworth was part of an Arnold Worldwide team helping to create antismoking ads. Before purchasing Super Bowl air time, there was much debate over whether viewers would be receptive to a serious message.
"Over the years, ad agencies have experimented with a variety of genres and it's been found that entertainment spots work best," said Unsworth, now president of the Boston Idea Group.
"People are watching in a party atmosphere, and commercials need to speak to that," Unsworth said.
"Not a lot changes when it comes to getting people's attention," said Skip Pile of Pile and Co, a Boston firm that advises advertisers.
And ads that are entertaining and humorous are the safest approach, said Walter Mills, a principal with Boston ad agency Partners & Simons. Given all the unsettling news about Iraq, North Korea, and the US economy, viewers may welcome entertaining ads this year, said chief creative officer Edward Boches of Wenham ad agency Mullen.
The Super Bowl, he said, "is the ultimate escape from reality."
As Reebok chief marketing officer Micky Pant sees it, entertainment by itself may not be enough. Partly because this is the first season in which both Super Bowl teams will sport uniforms with the Reebok logo under a long-term licensing deal with the National Football League, Reebok was eager to advertise during the game but realized its current campaign wouldn't work in that context. Many current ads feature pop stars.
The ads are "entertaining, but not amusing,"said Pant, who added, "You can't put up a serious message on the Super Bowl."
Reebok was already at work on a humorous campaign starring a fictional character named Terry Tate. The campaign wasn't conceived for the Super Bowl, but when the first ads were finished, they seemed a good fit for the big game, Pant said.
Super Bowl humor can't be too edgy, said Hill Holliday president Mike Sheehan. The best approach is "highly visual story telling"and family-friendly humor, he said.
Just because many companies follow the celebrity-and-humor formula doesn't rule out the possibility of great ads.
"There will be a great knockout surprise,"predicted Tobe Berkovitz, a Boston University professor who teaches classes on advertising.
Bowne DecisionQuest consultant Rob Duboff, who teaches at Boston College, is less optimistic. He thinks many Super Bowl ads are a waste of money, especially those with celebrities that make no meaningful link between the celebrity and the product.
Viewers this year are likely to be overwhelmed by "celebrity clutter," he said.
Although its Super Bowl spot this year uses a voice-over by country music disc jockey Bill Mack, Monster has generally avoided celebrities, and some of its four previous Super Bowl ads did not try to be funny.
Monster pitch
This year's spot will announce the national launch of a jobs program aimed at skilled-and-hourly workers. The perception has been that Monster is a career site for white-collar workers. The ad will convey the message, "Monster works for everybody."
As an Internet company, Monster may be able to bend some rules. It can measure the impact of its ad by traffic spikes to its Web site. Still, founder and chairman Jeff Taylor has a post-game Monday morning ritual -- every year, USA Today takes an instant popularity poll of Super Bowl ads, and every year, he drives to a Hopkinton gas station to buy a USA Today.
Some Monster ads have ranked near the bottom, but Taylor doesn't mind. If traffic increases to Monster.com, he said, he can conclude the Super Bowl ad has reached its target audience.
Beijing’s continued provocations in the Taiwan Strait reveal its intention to unilaterally change the “status quo” in the area, the US Department of State said on Saturday, calling for a peaceful resolution to cross-strait issues. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) reported that four China Coast Guard patrol vessels entered restricted and prohibited waters near Kinmen County on Friday and again on Saturday. A State Department spokesperson said that Washington was aware of the incidents, and urged all parties to exercise restraint and refrain from unilaterally changing the “status quo.” “Maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is in line with our [the
EXTENDED RANGE: Hsiung Sheng missiles, 100 of which might be deployed by the end of the year, could reach Chinese command posts and airport runways, a source said A NT$16.9 billion (US$534.93 million) project to upgrade the military’s missile defense systems would be completed this year, allowing the deployment of at least 100 long-range Hsiung Sheng missiles and providing more deterrence against China, military sources said on Saturday. Hsiung Sheng missiles are an extended-range version of the Hsiung Feng IIE (HF-2E) surface-to-surface cruise missile, and are believed to have a range of up to 1,200km, which would allow them to hit targets well inside China. They went into mass production in 2022, the sources said. The project is part of a special budget for the Ministry of National Defense aimed at
READY TO WORK: Taiwan is eager to cooperate and is hopeful that like-minded states will continue to advocate for its inclusion in regional organizations, Lai said Maintaining the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, and peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region must be a top priority, president-elect William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday after meeting with a delegation of US academics. Leaders of the G7, US President Joe Biden and other international heads of state have voiced concerns about the situation in the Strait, as stability in the region is necessary for a safe, peaceful and prosperous world, Lai said. The vice president, who is to be inaugurated in May, welcomed the delegation and thanked them for their support for Taiwan and issues concerning the Strait. The international community
COOPERATION: Two crewmembers from a Chinese fishing boat that sank off Kinmen were rescued, two were found dead and another two were still missing at press time The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) was yesterday working with Chinese rescuers to find two missing crewmembers from a Chinese fishing boat that sank southwest of Kinmen County yesterday, killing two crew. The joint operation managed to rescue two of the boat’s six crewmembers, but two were already dead when they were pulled from the water, the agency said in a statement. Rescuers are still searching for two others from the Min Long Yu 61222, a boat registered in China’s Fujian Province that capsized and sank 1.03 nautical miles (1.9km) southwest of Dongding Island (東碇), it added. CGA Director-General Chou Mei-wu (周美伍) told a