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Super Bowl XLIII...The Commercial Gridiron

With econ climate woes sacking the year's biggest ad opp, this year's Super Bowl saw few touchdowns according to MiC's panel of industry pros. The battle waged by marketers for the hearts and minds of Canada's (CTV/RDI) Super Bowl viewers was decidedly down-market, say some. Others insist, recession or not, imagination is still paramount.

Mass media is alive and well, but it can work against you if not used correctly. Time to change old strategies - Helena Shelton, executive VP, director of trading, MediaCom

Mass media events are not dead. The Super Bowl attracted viewers before the main event as people logged onto the net to get a preview of the always highly anticipated Super Bowl television ads. Most people I spoke to were planning to watch the game at home or with friends or in a bar, but they were planning to watch. At the time of writing, NBC reported it sold 100% of its television spots for a record $206 million in ad revenues. As I said, mass media is alive and doing fine.

At half-time this writer went to the Internet for immediate info. Comments on US ads were fairly positive: out of the 30 ads that had run, the only real negative comments were about the 3D ads - not very 3D. Different story in Canada: blogs were all about the excessive CTV self-promotion and Olympic promotion; no comments on any ads. We kept track of all the ads aired in Canada and 21% in the first half were CTV ads for CTV programming; that figure does not include any of the numerous virtual promotions.

When it was all over, we had an exciting game with the longest play in Super Bowl history! Sites like YouTube were still collecting votes for the best Super Bowl ad and in Canada the second half was same as the first, but this time 34% of the ads aired were all about CTV. What does this tell us? CTV did not sell out of Super Bowl airtime? Don't air the same ad or promo spot too many times, you risk being annoying?

Mass media is alive and well, but can work against you if not used correctly. Really, we only need to go to the online blogs to get a glimpse into what the general public is thinking, that's easy. The hard part is changing old strategies.

It's the Super Bowl in the USA, but here in Canada it's a TV program with a big audience - Rob Young, senior VP planning services, PHD Canada

Two pitched battles took place on last night's Super Bowl XLIII telecast: Arizona Cardinals vs. the Pittsburg Steelers, and the highly anticipated titanic struggle between televised brand messages. Well...anticipated amongst millions of American Super Bowl viewers perhaps. The battle waged by marketers for the hearts and minds of Canada's (CTV/RDI) Super Bowl viewers was decidedly down-market. That's because the USA telecast of the Super Bowl is, from a media buying/planning point of view, a "super-contextual" vehicle. Produce a million dollar TV super-commercial, place it in a $3 million TV super-spot and just wait for the brand to achieve consumer super-cachet. The math doesn't work here in Canada because marketers can't afford to produce special TV super-commercials and run them in $117,000, 30-second Super Bowl avails. The whole super-contextual media buy breaks down in Canada.

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