$3.5 Million enough for ya?

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word Super Bowl? My guess is, a big football game with a very close second, commercials. It is not uncommon for people to watch the Super Bowl purely to watch the commercials and not the game. I am one of those people who could really care less about the game but if I were to watch it I find more enjoyment in watching the commercials verses the game itself.

The commercials during the Super Bowl are not cheap. Volkswagen paid $3.5 Million dollars for their 30-second spot during the championship game. That is sure one pretty penny, if you ask me.

As a senior at North Dakota State University who is finishing up my minor in public relations and advertisement along with my degree in Architecture I find it very interesting how companies use their very expensive 30 seconds. 

It never fails, after every Super Bowl there are two lists. The good and the bad. Just think spending $3.5 million dollars and the commercial ends up being a dud. However, is it really a dud when so many people are taking about it, good or bad? In the world of advertisement talk is talk and even if it is negative it is still causing attention to the ad and then in return the product the commercial is promoting.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/
why-super-bowl-ads-keep-getting-more-expensive/250810/

Super Bowl 46 was also known not just for it’s commercials, like every other Super Bowl, but also for being the most “social” Super Bowl ever, and broke new ground in several areas of integrated digital marketing. This year the Indianapolis Super Bowl Host Committee and the local social media agency Raidious joined forces to create the first ever, social media command center right in Indianapolis for covering the game.

Fans everywhere were able to watch the game on television while also logging into their Facebook, Twitter, Google+ accounts and get updates or have any questions answered that they might have about the game. Those sites have their own advertisement, which are automatically built in. So with those advertisements, plus the very expensive advertisements aired during the game, people were surrounded by more advertisements than they probably even knew what to do with.

Why you ask is commercial air space so darn expensive? Why the heck would a company want to pay that much money for airing and advertisement?

According to Jordan Weissmann, associate editor of   The Atlantic, “audiences have fractured the age of      Hulu and DVR, the Super Bowl is among the last of an     increasingly endangered species: The truly mass audience live TV event. In good times and bad, that distinction has been worth a premium to advertisers.” The amount of people that watch the game is huge and increases every year. And Nielson found that, Super Bowl ads are 58% more memorable than regular TV ads.

Are all those circumstances are enough for 3.5 million dollars for 30 seconds right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-9EYFJ4Clo