If we could have your attention, please, you might ask for a moment why the inflation-adjusted cost of a Super Bowl ad has risen from $4.79 CPM in 1967 to $30.77 today. Are advertisers spending 600% more because they're desperate to reach consumers in one of the few remaining mass mediums?
Well, yes. (CPM, for you non-ad types, is the cost to make 1,000 impressions on an audience and the basic benchmark to compare ad costs. The actual price of a 30-second spot this year is $3 million.) Critic Bob Garfield of Ad Age puzzles over why advertisers continue to throw money in "pursuit of an extravagant, terrible commercial," but one hint comes from Vinny Warren, who led development of several Super Bowl commercials. Warren writes in Adweek "the Super Bowl is special because everyone watches it. You, your grandma, your youngest cousin. We all tune in. Last year, 97.5 million people watched the Giants beat the then-undefeated Patriots." Young consumers look up from the internet, and older affluent homeowners put down the DVR button and stop skipping commercials.
Trouble is, the internet may eventually threaten even this mass-appeal model. Clever brands such as E*Trade are leveraging online communications to broaden the impact of their spots; the E*Trade talking baby trader now has a Twitter account and you can watch his video outtakes here. But other companies are feeling the pressure to issue previews of their spots, which may take some of the buzz out of them. We already have images of what Bridgestone, Miller, and Pixar will do. We know Tom Hanks will pitch the upcoming Dan Brown movie sequel and that GoDaddy.com will show two women in a shower. One Twitter page now has an ongoing stream of Super Bowl ad leaks.
Super Bowl ads still work. But if you give them away for free beforehand, will advertisers keep on paying to play?
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