Industry Info

Super Bowl Halftime: Prepare to be Interrupted

Well, we’re about a week away from America’s biggest TV spectacle. No, its not the Super Bowl — rather, the Super Bowl halftime advertisements. Every year its a contest to see how much a brand can spend to interrupt and hopefully entertain viewers in TV spots that are now as short as 5 seconds.

We’ve all heard about the astronomical costs of buying the TV time, but what about the production costs of the ads? What about the planning, sleepless nights, and sweat equity invested by brands and their agencies to have that one killer ad that everyone talks about in the office until March Madness.

While I can reflect on some great Super Bowl ads over the years such as the Anheuser Busch frogs to “Wha’s Up?” — did I buy any Budweiser because they entertained me for 5 seconds? How about you? Did you move all your domain registrations to Go Daddy because they aired raunchy halftime ads the past few years?

I just hope that for all the hoopla, these same brands are investing an equal number of sleepless nights thinking about retaining loyal customers, creating exceptional products (made somewhere other than China), and delivering a brand experience that lives up to their brand promise.

Tags: advertising