For Lew Lazare
At almost the last minute, Groupon has made it into Sunday’s Super Bowl of Advertising, traditionally the biggest event of the year for advertisers and the advertising industry in America.
The Chicago-based, super-hot digital discount coupon company looks to be latching on to the Super Bowl and its 100-million-person TV audience to raise brand awareness in a hurry. Groupon was initially slated to run ads only in the pre- and post-Super Bowl shows. But as sometimes happens, ad time opened up in the game itself last minute, and Groupon grabbed it.
Groupon tapped Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami to do its three Super Bowl-related spots. CP+B is known for not being afraid to be outrageous. Among other things, CP+B cooked up the subservient chicken online for Burger King.
Groupon is keeping details about its new Super Bowl work under wraps, but Crispin selected Christopher Guest to direct the TV commercials. Guest recently did a series of TV ads drawing attention to the 2010 United States Census that were developed by DraftFCB.
Groupon and a slew of other advertisers will pay top dollar (upwards of $3 million per 30 seconds) to buy time during this year’s Super Bowl. They gladly cough up the big bucks because this TV event, more than any other each year, draws tens of millions of males and females who sit in front of their TVs to actually watch the advertising as well as the game itself.
This year’s Super Bowl of Ads promises to be an event filled — more than usual — with commercial announcements from the auto industry.
No fewer than eight major auto makers — among them Audi, GM, Chrysler and Volkswagen — have signed on to run commercials during the Super Bowl. With the economy starting to turn around, auto makers figure now is the time to whet the public’s appetite for a new car. And car manufacturers are using advertising’s biggest stage to do just that.
Some, like BMW, are keeping all details of their Super Bowl ads under wraps until the commercials run Sunday. But Audi, which has a high profile buy in the first commercial break after kickoff, has released just enough particulars to draw interest.
Like several of the spots in the year’s line-up, the Audi commercial, titled “Release the Hounds,” features a celebrity appearance — in this instance jazz musician Kenny G. He is tied into a story about two inmates who are trying to break out of a luxury prison. Just what a “luxury” prison looks like remains to be seen.
Anheuser-Busch has long been a major player in the Super Bowl of Advertising. This year, however, with Belgian-based InBev now solidly in control of the iconic American brewer, A-B’s presence won’t be as dominant as it has been in years past.
The August Busch clan that sold the brewery to InBev was a big believer in making a big advertising splash during the Super Bowl — no matter the cost. The more cost-conscious InBev, however, appears to be taking a more conservative approach toward Super Bowl ad expenditures and putting some of that money to use in other marketing efforts.
The brewer is buying only three and a half minutes of ad time this year, compared to five minutes in 2010. A-B is splitting that buy among three brands, one of which is import Stella Artois, making its first appearance at the Super Bowl. Adrien Brody plays a singer performing for a room full of beautiful women in a nightclub circa 1960. Brody said he’s pushed the envelop personally in this spot, because he’s never before had a singing role.
There will also be a Budweiser spot with the Clydesdales. The famous horse team was almost shut out of last year’s Super Bowl. But the public raised a fuss, and A-B returned the Clydesdales to the mix last minute.
DDB/Chicago, an A-B roster ad agency, did two of three Bud Light ads that will run Sunday. The ads are part of the “Here We Go” campaign that has been running heavily in recent months. DDB had no Bud Light work in last year’s Super Bowl.
New to the show this year
Best Buy will make its first ever Super Bowl of Advertising appearance with a spot that it has promised will revolutionize retailing. Stars Justin Bieber and Ozzy Osbourne, an odd couple if there ever were one, will help Best Buy make its case.
Snickers ran a hugely successful commercial in last year’s Super Bowl, and the candy bar brand is back again with a new commercial from BBDO/New York using the same concept, “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry.” Last year’s spot featured Abe Vigoda and Betty White getting tackled on the football field. It was not a pretty sight, but Super Bowl fans ate it up. Plus the spot majorly helped reinvigorate White’s career.
This time around, Roseanne Barr and Richard Lewis are the celebrity actors in the Snickers spot called “Logging.” Judging from the teaser we saw, the commercial looks to take place in a logging camp among a group of brawny loggers. We can only imagine.
Look for another familiar and fun presence in past Super Bowls of Advertising to return this year. Yes, we’re talking about the E-Trade baby, who in past commercials has amused us no end with his very unbaby-like wisecracks.
Finally, the cola wars will be much in evidence in this year’s Super Bowl of Advertising. Both Pepsi and Coca-Cola will be peddling their products. Pepsi Max will get a major push from PepsiCo and Coca-Cola will, of course, focus its Super Bowl ad buy on the world’s most well-known brand.
We’ve loved a lot of the Coke work from Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Ore. in recent years. The two spots Coke will air on Sunday also look quite promising — at least on paper. One called “Siege” shows how Coke is used to ward off an army of ogres and dragons advancing on a castle. Another is about two border guards from neighboring countries who manage to make a friendly connection thanks to Coke.
Source: Chicago Sun-Time
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