The Super Bowl and The Buzz Factor

Is $2.6 million for a 30-second ad in the Super Bowl a good investment? A lot of experts (CNN story here) are saying it depends mostly on whether the post-game buzz, fed by the Web and other media, gets the commercial considerable additional exposure. There’s more on this at Wired. These days that extra buzz can add up to a great deal more return on investment.

There is also plenty of talk about an advertising milestone in the game with its first public-generated ad: Doritos (check out the five finalists). This is a fitting exclamation point to Time naming “you” person of the year and Advertising Age naming “you” agency of the year. It also demonstrates the power of pre-game publicity for advertising.

And then there’s the buzz about Sarah who first tried to auction herself as a Super Bowl date on eBay. After her ploy was pulled from that site, she was given four tickets to the big game by AXE. Consequently, she went the MySpace route instead, held a contest, and chose a date for the Super Bowl. This lady understands the new tools of marketing. The resulting publicity from this has been worth MUCH more than the price of the tickets for AXE.

Some companies that can’t afford (or don’t want) to shell out the high price of advertising in the Super Bowl, have created an alternate game plan: The SuperDotComAds XLI on YouTube. It’s not quite the audience of the Super Bowl, but, then again, it’s not quite the price either.

Whatever the buzz, this is the big day for sports and advertising. According to a Harris Interactive poll, over two-thirds of U.S. adults plan to watch the Super Bowl. In addition, the survey reveals over half of those viewers watch the big game as much for the ads as the game. That ought to buy some advertisers their monies’ worth.