New York Times stalwart ad critic Stuart Elliott weighed in with this report yesterday:
Early Kickoff for Marketers at Super Bowl
ADVERTISERS got an early start this year on Christmas, as holiday ads began appearing in mid-October. The front-running is continuing, for another big advertising occasion: the Super Bowl.
Usually, marketers that decide to buy commercials during the coming Super Bowl wait until after New Year’s Day to start telling the public and press about their plans. The rationale has been that what they had to say would probably get lost during the holiday hoopla.
For Super Bowl XLVII, to be broadcast by CBS on Feb. 3, several sponsors are taking a different tack by confiding game strategies while shoppers still seek Christmas gifts. Last week alone, two brands, SodaStream and Lincoln, disclosed that they would, for the first time, become Super Bowl advertisers, and a third, Mercedes-Benz, offered details about what its commercial would be like.
Why so soon?
According to Elliott: the rapid rise of social media.
Whatever the reason, the quicker the sooner, as the hardworking staff’s high school teacher Fr. (Flash) Flood used to say.
Elliott, for his part, says:
Given how costly a Super Bowl spot is, “it makes a lot of sense” to begin publicizing it early, said Ellis Verdi, president of DeVito/Verdi in New York, which is creating a commercial, scheduled for the third quarter of Super Bowl XLVII, for the Gildan line of apparel sold by Gildan Activewear. The average price that CBS is charging for each 30-second commercial in the game is in the range of $3.8 million.
“It’s only smart to extend the conversation,” Mr. Verdi said. “You want to get as much benefit as you can.”
Among the ways DeVito/Verdi and Gildan will try that are a pair of initiatives on Facebook, including one that will let people insert photos of themselves or their friends in a scene of the commercial, paid search ads, banner ads and preroll ads that appear before online videos.
The Gildan spot is to be formally announced on Wednesday.
The first in a (Flash) Flood of similar announcements, we’re guessing.
