• by Wayne Friedman , January 29, 2009

NBC couldn't find last-minute gold for its Super Bowl commercials--until the network sold one of its remaining spots in this Sunday's game to a little-known TV marketer called Cash4Gold.com.

"The Super Bowl being the biggest event, it made absolute sense to get in front of as many eyes as possible, given the economic times," said Jeff Aronson, CEO of Cash4Gold.com.

The company, which encourages consumers to send in their gold jewelry and other items for cash, has been growing of late --all because of hard economic times, says Aronson. "Companies are laying off 8,000, 10,000, 20,000 people at time. People are looking for ways to get money. We provide a service."

Some analysts look at companies like Cash4Gold as "direct-response" marketers--those that buy TV at bargain-basement prices, or those that buy on a "per inquiry" basis. "Per inquiry" advertisers typically display a 1-800 number in their spots; they pay TV stations and networks based on how many people call into that telephone number.

Aronson said that Cash4Gold did not operate that way with the Super Bowl spot, and declined to reveal the spot price tag. NBC has said in the last couple of days that pricing for a 30-second spot is now going for around $2.4 million, down from the $3 million it was charging some advertisers when deals were made last summer.

Historically, Cash4Gold has been a TV advertiser buying cable, syndication, daytime and overnight broadcast network programming-- but never prime-time or major sports programming.

The spot features Ed McMahon and hip-hop star MC Hammer "one upping" each other when it comes to sending in their gold for cash. Super Bowl ad veteran Bryan Buckley and his Hungry Man productions produced the spot. The media buy was done by Euro RSCG Edge.