Charles Taylor, a marketing professor at Villanova School of Business, said the spot would be “the most talked about ad of many years.” That would be a major victory for any marketer. With a national audience that could reach an estimated one-third of 300 million Americans, the National Football League’s championship game is the biggest day of the year for advertisers. Sometimes known as the Ad Bowl or Buzz Bowl, prices for 30 seconds of commercial time during CBS’s <CBS.N> broadcast topped out at more than $3 million. Most deals were done in the $2.5 million to $2.75 million range, ad executives said. Those rates are far above what other TV events command, partly because the game draws around 95 million U.S. viewers, most of whom watch the game live, a rarity in the age of digital video recorders. In Sunday’s game, in which the New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts, several newcomers made an appearance in advertisements. Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc used its first ever Super Bowl commercial to trumpet Dr. Pepper Cherry in a spot featuring glam rock group Kiss; Sprint Nextel Corp’s Boost Mobile enlisted some of the players from the 1985 Chicago Bears Super Bowl team, including Jim McMahon and Mike Singletary. Catching many by surprise, Google Inc. ran a commercial during the game, an unusual marketing decision for a company that typically avoids mass market commercials. The spot, well-received by experts, told the story of a transAtlantic romance though search queries and results. After 12 years away from the game, another technology powerhouse, Intel, returned for Super Bowl XLIV with a 30-second spot it called “Lunchroom.” In the commercial, a robot’s feelings are shattered when an Intel engineer declares that a new microprocessor is the “most amazing” invention the company has ever come up with.
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2010 Media Report Villanova School of Business