Commentary

Record-Breaking Super Bowl: Economical For Advertisers

For the most dramatic Super Bowl in years, I'll remember the first commercial message I saw after the game on Fox. It was something about "not having a box."

Actually, it was a promo for Fox's FX cable channel, with the campaign: "There is no box," FX's take on the business line "Think outside the box."

Filled with images of FX' edgy, tough-talking shows like "The Shield, "Nip/Tuck," "Rescue Me" and "Damages," the promo hit me at the right time. I don't regularly watch that channel, but I was primed, and -- how you Americans say -- "engaged" with the ad.

What does a dramatic, high-rated Super Bowl mean for advertisers? Good news: continued media value in iffy entertainment/TV times.

As compared to other top-line TV sports programs like the NCAA college basketball tournament, some media agency executives see the Super Bowl as a relative steal from a CPM basis -- even at nearly $3 million a 30-second spot and with relatively lower ratings over the last few years. Now, with Sunday night's record-breaking viewership for the game, the event inches up to a new plateau.

Creatively, Super Bowl commercials were of the usual, cruel-college-humor type -- almost-squashed animals, Neanderthals, witch doctors, and a human heart ripped from a woman's chest. One man getting his manhood crushed (Pepsi and Justin Timberlake). There was one clichéd, inappropriate spot featuring some ethnic Americans (Salegenie.com). The end result: The usual creative, with over-average viewer delivery.

That's a pretty good formula advertisers will take every time.

Fox had a nice set-up. Two big market teams -- one based in New York and the other going for perhaps the biggest, most impossible team sports record ever.

Concerning impossible tasks, think about the Red Sox and Yankees a few years back. In one fell swoop the Red Sox, in a highly charged playoff series, eliminated the Babe Ruth curse and did the impossible -- coming back from a 3-0 game deficit, winning three straight games against the Yankees, then going on to win the World Series.

This Sunday a New York-based sports team evened the score, in what seemed an almost-impossible task. The Giants were written off. Super Bowl advertisers got their hard-to-believe scenario as well -- value for their dollar in a time where traditional TV is being written off.

But don't listen to me. I'm too engaged. My team won

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