NFL Whining

[jimhelm]

well, they've stayed afloat this long somehow.

And my point was really about the advertising tactic, not the company that employs it. I would think that spending 2million for a 15 second spot on the superbowl would be more effective than spending 20k on 100 spots that air during the times we actively ignore them.

linkie

The quantitative argument for Super Bowl ads being reasonably priced would proceed with some simple math. More than 100 million people watch the Super Bowl. Compare that to 20 million people, on average, watching Sunday Night Football in 2012; or 12 million watching The X-Factor; or 4 million watching 30 Rock. On a per-person, per-30-second basis, those numbers suggest that a Super Bowl viewer is worth twice as much as somebody watching The X-Factor or 30 Rock (which can be DVR'd, so the ads can be skipped) -- or 33 percent more valuable than somebody watching a Sunday Night Football game.

But the quantitative approach isn't sufficient to reveal the true value of Super Bowl advertising, because Super Bowl ads are qualitatively different from practically every other advertising event on your computer screen or television screen. To understand why, go back to the first sentence of this article: "The typical conversation about Super Bowl ads..." Stop right there. Appreciate how amazing it is that you didn't flinch when you read that phrase.

Despite marketers' best intentions, the fundamental relationship between consumers and ads is the act of ignoring. But people actually talk about Super Bowl ads, on purpose. They discuss them, analyze them, rank them. The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Entertainment Weekly, The Huffington Post ... sites that hardly mention Madison Avenue 364 days of the year suddenly transform, for one morning, into Ad Week and give drooling close-up coverage to Super Bowl ads.

When else do advertisements get their own advertisements?

Measuring the effectiveness of advertising is devilishly difficult, because it's practically impossible to pin-point the moment that millions of very different people made up their mind to buy something. It's easier to measure attention. And the attention bestowed on Super Bowl ads -- their art, their message, their brand-y-ness -- is qualitatively different from every other standard ad spot. By designating the Super Bowl as the Super Bowl of advertising, Madison Avenue has created something utterly unique: A national media event where people beg the room to quiet down so they can hear branded messages brought to them by multinational corporations.

At $4 million, that's not a rip-off. It's a steal.

[infinite monkey]

I'm more inclined to buy more Budweiser because of the baby Clydesdale than I will be inclined to register a domain name because of a beautiful woman sucking some nerd's face off. Beer ads often use beautiful women and perfect men (drink this and you'll look like this) but I don't usually turn my head in disgust over a tactic that's supposed to be shockier than the year before for a target audience of...what? Prepubescent males?

Call me a prude, but if I WERE to want to register a domain name, I would not use GoDaddy. If I were male, I would like to think I wouldn't be swayed by such a stupid commercial, and would be a more pragmatic, glattlike, man.

Long ago advertising started to see that 'if it makes you remember' then it's a good ad. But there's only so far that will go with some people.

I might remember an ad for condoms depicting a date rape ("Don't leave any evidence behind...buy Spartans!") but I certainly wouldn't buy the product.

[jimhelm]

I'm just saying that without those ads you would never have even heard of them.

[glatt]

That's true. And if you don't have a big budget, a single memorable spot in the Superbowl is a good idea. We're talking about them after all.

[infinite monkey]

Point taken.

But it was still gross.

[xoxoxoBruce]

More than 100 million people watch the Super Bowl.

Plus I can't think of another show where people look forward to, and actively watch, the commercials.

[Undertoad]

Men buy domain names. It's what we do.