Super Bowl Ads

Super Bowl ads are possibly the highest profile advertising money can buy in America. The Super Bowl game is watched by over 90 million people every year and commercials are scrutinized by the public almost as much as the game itself. How much are Super Bowl advertising costs? For just 30 seconds of air time, Super Bowl ads cost 2.6 million dollars as of 2007. It's little surprise then that the advertising world, fans and critics of all sorts pick apart Super Bowl ads and rate them according to effectiveness. This is the epitome of American marketing and copy write, with an astronomical price and with a worldwide audience who are glued to their television sets.

Super Bowl Ads In America

Super Bowl ads usually do not run outside of American television networks. In other countries viewers see regional ads that have lower audiences, suffer from a lower reputation and cost less overall. This is mainly because a Superbowl ad is an American product and American football is less popular overseas than at home.

The invention of Tivo has dramatically influenced the success of Super Bowl ads, as viewers can now skip over commercials and pause and rewind other Superbowl adds. Super Bowl adds are also frequently downloaded on the Internet or onto cell phones.

The Most Famous Super Bowl Advertisements

One of the most famous Superbowl advertisements was the 1974 ad for Noxzema with Joe Namath in which the legendary player proclaimed that “I'm going to Disney World.” Other memorable Super Bowl ads include the Xerox copier ad with Brother Dominic the monk making 500 copies of a manuscript, Michael Jordan and Larry Bird playing for McDonald's, the Budweiser Drogs, and the NFL Network ad that saw runner up players and coaches singing “Tomorrow.” The most famous and critically acclaimed ad was the debut of Apple Macintosh, directed by Ridley Scott as a parody of the novel 1984 and of competitor IBM.

How about modern day Superbowl ads, such as 2007 and Super Bowl XLI ads? Some memorable Superbowl XLI ads included the Snickers Super Bowl ad, the CBS Superbowl ads and the Blockbuster Super Bowl ad. The Snickers Superbowl ad started some controversy as the commercial featured two men accidentally kissing each other after sharing a candy bar, after which they then ripped chest hairs in manly homophobia. (Needless to say the gay community didn't find it funny) The Blockbuster Superbowl ad featured a Guinea pig and a rabbit rough housing a mouse (trying to connect to the web, nyuk nyuk) while General Motor's laid off suicidal robot commercial drew criticism from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. You just can't please everyone...90 million people can be fickle.