• The New York Times, Friday, January 5, 2007 12:30 PM

Demand for Super Bowl spots is as ardent as ever 30 days before kickoff, even as Madison Avenue is anxiously seeking alternatives to traditional selling tactics, like TV commercials. CBS has sold about 80% of the available advertising time, which totals about 30 minutes, for a record estimated average of $2.6 million for each 30-second spot.

Super Bowl advertising is "about the next day," says Andrew Burke, vice president for marketing at Diamond Foods in Stockton, Calif. "People in their office say to each other, 'Did you see that guy in that Super Bowl commercial?' "

Other advertisers will include Super Bowl stalwarts, like Anheuser-Busch, FedEx, General Motors and the Frito-Lay and Pepsi-Cola divisions of PepsiCo. There will also be commercials from recent Super Bowl arrivals, like CareerBuilder and GoDaddy. Several movie studios have bought spots but do not want to identify themselves yet in order to maximize the hoopla they can generate through PR campaigns.

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