In the run-up to Super Bowl XLIV, the marketing news is as much about which brands are not taking the field on Super Sunday. While ad prices dipped for only the second time in the game’s history, it will still cost brands at least $2.5 million to suit up with a 30-second spot. And several brands that have long been a part of Ad Bowl history are deciding that expense is not the right play this year.
Most prominent is Pepsi, which called a timeout in its 23-year ad history with the big game. The beverage maker said its decision was less about cost-cutting than about finding more promise in ongoing social campaigns like its current Pepsi Refresh Project than in one-shot media opportunities such as the Super Bowl. Rival Coke will have a Super Bowl ad, and for the first time, so will Dr Pepper.
For other brands, however, the no-shows are indeed about the dough. As it did last year, FedEx is bowing out of game ads despite its long affiliation with the National Football League and said explicitly that it was an economy move. Ford and General Motors are also staying away from Bowl ads for the second year, but Chrysler grabbed a 30-second slot — only to find itself attacked in Congress and the press for wasting taxpayers’ bailout money.
Other brands are finding it worthwhile to market around the game, but not during it. Papa John’s Pizza won’t buy a commercial, but it did sign a deal to be the Official Pizza Sponsor of the Super Bowl — which is the pizza version of the holiday shopping season.
“It offers the ultimate single-day business opportunity,” papa John’s spokesperson Chris Sternberg said in press reports, adding that the chain should sell 750,000 pies at its U.S. restaurants that day. Costs of the sponsorship were not disclosed.
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