Football; the great American passtime and with it comes a time when 
every year the two best teams battle it out on the gridiron to settle once and for all who is the best team of the season. Family and friends gather in living rooms or sports bars, watching and waiting for which team will be crowned the Superbowl Champ. However that’s only 50% of the viewers, for the other half the Superbowl is all about the commercials.
Superbowl commercials have become just as big as the game itself. It’s growth in popularity is due to the commercials outrageous nature, mostly including heightened sexuality, violence, and humour. With the blatant anticipation for the commercial everyone is wondering what have they thought of next, and will it surpass last years commercial. Then there is always the outrageous price tag on the coveted 30-1 min slot.
The commercials around the Superbowl have become a staple in North American Pop culture. How? I’m not quite sure. Why? Because everyone loves a good laugh, and is always curious as to how outlandish ccommercials will get. And for what? To be talked about for the next week by the water cooler and forgotten by the time Valentine’s Day rolls around? It truly illustrates how advertising companies will stop at nothing to get a hold of a large audiences attention even for 30 sec.
The companies marketing strategies, its all about achieving the ultimate goal: Reaching a large audience with a wide ranging demographic. Not to mention they get immense amounts of publicity on whether or not their commercial was funny, violent, sexist or overtly sexual. It’s all the same to them. Any publicity is good publicity.
According to Advertising Age’s website, advertising during the SuperBowl started to reach the one million mark in 1995. And as the ads got pricier and the media increasingly reported about it, it of course generated curiosity and gathered an even larger audience than expected. Despite the fluctuating number of viewers watching the SuperBowl overs the years(1967-2007) it hasn’t dipped below 83 million since 1995. Of course this could have something to do with which teams were playing at the time, but no one knows for sire.
For SuperBow XLIII companies have paid a record $3million for their commercial to be aired, and this is considered a bargain.
Despite the slumping economy and the world travelling on a road to recession corporations still managed to shell out a record $206 million dollars, exceeding last years total. NBC is the lucky broadcasting station to receive the profit; a total of 69 slots were sold and there were only 32 lucky companies that got them.
This is a youtube compelation video of the top ten superbowl XLIII commerical’s to show you how creative, sexist and violent they can be. But of couse all in good fun.
The following quotation taken from Yahoo News, demonstrates the mentality of corporation during this time, when I thought people watched the Superbowl to watch the best of the best play their hearts out. However it turns out its all about capital gain and brand power.
“These advertising milestones show the power of the NFL brand and the strength of the Super Bowl as a TV property in this economic climate,” said Jeff Zucker, president and CEO of NBC Universal. “The Super Bowl has become one of our country’s biggest holidays, a uniquely American day, and advertisers recognized the value in being a part of it.”
