Handy-Dandy Super Bowl Guide

Thu., Jan. 30, 2003 10:15 AM PST by Kimberly Potts

Think a little old trophy and that obligatory postgame trip to Disneyland is the only thing at stake when the Carolina Panthers meet the New England Patriots this Sunday in Super Bowl XXXVIII?

Try millions of dollars and an entire year of planning by many corporations. And that's just on the television commercials.

This year, a 30-second spot on CBS' broadcast of the game at Houston's Reliant Stadium will set advertisers back $2.3 million, not to mention the cost of actually producing the commercials that companies annually hope will have the impact of the iconic, Ridley Scott-directed "1984" spot that introduced Macintosh to the world 20 years ago. (That clip is among those featured in CBS? Super Bowl?s Greatest Commercials on Saturday).

Among the ads most likely to make a splash this Super Bowl Sunday:

Pepsi's "I Fought the Law" spot, featuring Green Day's cover of the Bobby Fuller hit "I Fought the Law" and 16 real-life teens who were sued for illegally downloading music on the Internet. The ad kicks off the soda company's joint promotion with Apple's legal music download site iTunes, during which Pepsi will give away 100 million free songs, via random bottlecaps on 20-ounce and 1-liter bottles of Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Sierra Mist. MasterCard's clever "The Simpsons" ad, part of its "Priceless" series, in which animated patriarch Homer spends the day running errands and arguing with the commercial's voiceover guy. "Getting your errands done quicker to spend more time with your family...Priceless," says Voiceover Guy, who repeats the mantra again to a dallying Homie. "Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time," Homer replies. "Stupid voiceover." Other high-profile spots include Muhammad Ali popping up in an IBM ad, Willie Nelson's latest H&R Block commercial and AOL spots featuring the stars of the Discovery Channel's popular reality series American Chopper, Paul Sr., Paul Jr. and Mikey Teutul. Also on the docket are ads for Anheuser-Busch, Frito-Lay, Monster.com and three different penile-dysfunction drugs, Viagra, Cialis and Levitra.

And what do the companies dropping major coin expect in return for the dough? According to a survey conducted by media planning and buying agency Initiative, among the more than 130 million viewers nationally and potential 1 billion worldwide expected to tune in Sunday, 99.5 percent actually watch the commercials, as opposed to 85 to 95 percent for regular network programming.

Also, unlike regular broadcasts, special events like the Super Bowl tend to be watched live, instead of via VCR or TiVo, which makes skipping the ads an attractive--to viewers, anyway--option. And in a TV season that has, so far, seen ratings dropping across all networks, especially among young male viewers, advertisers see the Super Bowl spots as a way to make up for some lost consumers.

Meanwhile, other companies are using the Super Bowl as a completely different advertising opportunity. The National Football League teamed up with MGM to make sure Super Bowl fans know about the studio's new comedy sequel Barbershop 2: Back in Business, which includes the presence of much of the flick's cast (Ice Cube, Cedric the Entertainer, Eve, Queen Latifah) at official Super Bowl functions, as well as an all-star, "official Super Bowl screening" and party that was held Thursday in Houston.

In other football festivities, CBS has hauled out a lineup of impressive celebrities of its own, including a NASA tribute for the preshow, with national anthem singer Beyonc? Knowles, performers Toby Keith, Willie Nelson and Josh Groban, and the preshow capper by Aerosmith.

"The Super Bowl is rock 'n' roll! It's sexy, it's slammin', it's precision, it's passion and pure energy. That's 'Sweet Emotion' to me," says sound-bite simpatico and Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler.

The half-time show, produced by CBS' Viacom sister network MTV, includes Janet Jackson, P. Diddy, Nelly and Kid Rock. CBS is also taking advantage of the Super Bowl lead-in audience--a coveted time slot for one lucky program every year--for the postgame premiere of Survivor: All-Stars, which pits the good, the bad and the dastardly (Richard Hatch!) of past Survivor seasons against each other for another shot at the $1 million prize.

But Super Bowl weekend isn't all fun and games. Well, okay, actually it is, but this year there's some controversy afoot, too.

Free-speech supporters are being vocal about their displeasure with CBS' decision not to air an advertising spot by advocate group MoveOn.org. The ad, which criticizes the Bush administration about the U.S. deficit, was rejected by the network, which said the spot violates a decades-old CBS policy against airing issue advocacy ads.

Another rejected promo that sent the fur flying with a rebuffed advertiser: a cheeky People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) commercial that included two scantily-clad vegetarians getting frisky with a carnivorous pizza boy. When the romp went, ahem, south, the screen flashed a message: "Meat can cause impotence." Again, that pesky "advocacy" issue reared its ugly head. Or perhaps the CBS folk are just really big fans of the Atkins diet.

The network and the NFL also nixed an offer by U2's Bono to perform a duet with Jennifer Lopez called "A Prayer to America," a song about the AIDS crisis, during halftime. An NFL spokesperson said, "It wasn't appropriate to focus on a single issue."

Other networks have Super Bowl--or rather, anti-Super Bowl--plans of their own:

NBC puts the Fab V vs. Super Bowl XXXVIII with a three-episode marathon of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy repeats. The WB puts the Second-String VI vs. Super Bowl XXXVIII, with a three-episode marathon of Surreal Life repeats, featuring C-list celebs Tammy Faye Messner, Erik Estrada, Vanilla Ice, Ron Jeremy, Traci Bingham and Trishelle Canatella. HBO unfurls new episodes of Sex and the City, in which Miranda leaves Manhattan and settles into her new home in the country, er, Brooklyn, and Curb Your Enthusiasm, which finds Larry David butting heads with guest star David Schwimmer. Bravo airs all eight installments of its Gay Weddings documentary series Sunday night. And, if it's alternative half-time, uh, performances, you want, the inaugural PPV Lingerie Bowl 2004 offers a game of tackle football between two teams of scantily-clad lingerie models, including American Pie star Nikki Ziering.

And, in case you've forgotten by now, there is actually, you know, a football game being played Sunday night, where the Patriots are seven-point favorites, according to Las Vegas oddsmakers, to win their second NFL title in three years.

So, go Patriots!

Or, go Panthers!

Or, go get a beer before the commercials come on...