Stakes high for Super Bowl advertisers

You may laugh at the funny Super Bowl commercials and you may marvel over the ones that are visually stunning. But do you remember the brand?

The most popular Super Bowl commercials may not be the most effective, says Tim Calkins, a marketing professor who leads an annual study of Super Bowl commercials.

"The upside of having a commercial in the Super Bowl is that millions of people see will it," he says, "The downside is that if the commercial doesn't measure up then millions of people see that too."

The stakes are high for Super Bowl XLIV with advertisers paying $2.5 million to $3 million per 30 seconds.

"This is the biggest advertising day of the year and it's become a challenge for the advertising creative community to come up with bigger and better commercials," says Bob Horowitz, producer of an annual CBS special about the greatest Super Bowl commercials.

"Funny is back this year in a big way," he said in the telephone interview. "The Super Bowl is the one program where the viewers want to see the commercials as much as the game."

Calkins and fellow professor Derek D. Rucker, of Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, are getting ready for their sixth annual Super Bowl Advertising Review.

On Super Bowl Sunday, more than 35 of the school's top marketing students will be grading the commercials using a six-point evaluation system to determine the "most effective" sales pitch.

"What we do is different from the annual USA Today ad meter which measures how popular the commercials are," he said in a recent telephone interview.

"The Super Bowl is all about branding," he adds. "Sometimes the commercial will be funny or clever but you don't remember the product."

As an example, he cites the Ameriquest Mortgage "Don't Judge Too Quickly" campaign from 2006 with hilarious commercials about things that aren't what they appear to be - such as a woman walking in on an accident-prone man cooking what appeared to be a cat.

"They were funny and people talked about them, but people didn't know what Ameriquest was," Calkins says.

This year there will be more than 60 commercials during the game vying for attention.
Anheuser-Busch once again is the big-spender with five minutes of ad time for Budweiser and Bud Light. The beer company initially said it would drop a commercial featuring their iconic Clydesdales.

But the horses are back in after an online vote, the company announced Thursday.
By creating a little flap over the Clydesdales they created a buzz.

"That's the goal now. To get people taking before the game and looking at the commercials online after the game," says Horowitz.

"Anheuser-Busch always does a good job with the Super Bowl and the viewers actually look forward to see their commercials," Calkins says.

The reinstated commercial, called "Fence," features a friendship between a Clydesdale and a steer over the years. In another commercial, "Light House," one man's home is the envy of all his friends and neighbors. In "Asteroid" (for Bud Light), a giant asteroid hurtles toward Earth and a group of astronomers must decide how to spend the precious little time they have left.

Bud Light's "Voice Box" finds a group of friends experiencing an unusual voice change and "Stranded" finds island castaways distracted by a fortunate discovery.

This year's sold-out lineup on CBS also has returning powerhouse Coca-Cola and newcomers in Dr Pepper, Electronic Arts and vacation rental service HomeAway. FedEx, General Motors and Pepsi-Cola have retreated to the sidelines for this Super Bowl.

HomeAway has Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo re-creating their roles from "National Lampoon's Vacation" films.

Other commercials have Beyonce singing the praises of Verizon; Don Rickles providing the voice for "nasty flowers" for Teleflora; the 1985 Chicago Bears doing a Super Bowl shuffle rap for Boost Moblie; Monster.com using a fiddle-playing beaver; and racer car driver Danica Patrick revving it up for GoDaddy.com.

Also getting a lot of pre-game attention is Focus on the Family's pro-life ad with University of Florida football star Tim Tebow and his mother.

Other possible standouts include a Docker's commercial with men dancing in their underwear; Dr Pepper's "They Call Me Dr. Love" spot featuring the rock band Kiss singing alongside MiniKiss, a tribute band of little people; and Dove's "Mantheme" commercial with scenes of manhood from birth to fatherhood set to the "William Tell Overture."