SBB tackles final week of Super Bowl ad coverage

Sometimes silence is golden. Sometimes silence is just really expensive. Friday’s Dallas Morning News reports on an example of the latter from PepsiCo:

PepsiCo Inc. is hoping to make some noise with a Super Bowl ad featuring 60 seconds of silence.

During the Fox network's pregame show on Feb. 3, the nation's second-largest soft drink maker will air a commercial conceived by a PepsiCo employee, starring him and three others, including two who are deaf.

While PepsiCo is banking on the power of silence, one group of Super Bowl viewers is claiming that advertisers aren’t giving them anything to listen to. As Brandweek reports:

According to a new survey, 80% of moms plan to watch the big game and 60% say they will watch just to see the commercials. But 76% say they don’t think the ads are targeting them.

“The Super Bowl is an all-American affair, and moms around the country not only organize their families’ home-viewing parties, but are the segment of the market that actually purchase most of the products advertised during the game,” Teri Lucie Thompson, a board member at Marketing to Moms Coalition, Chicago...

There is, however, at least one advertiser who’s clearly hoping to get mom’s attention: the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Advertising Age provides a sneak preview of a Super Bowl spot from ONDCP that reminds parents to keep an eye on the Nyquil:

The Super Bowl spot, to air at the close of the first half, features a drug dealer complaining that his business is down because teens are getting high from abusing drugs in the medicine cabinet. It ends with an announcer saying: "Teens don't need a drug dealer to get high, safeguard your prescriptions. Safeguard you teens."

(By the way, SBB agrees with AdFreak’s take on the spot’s protagonist: "Didn’t I see that guy on a rerun of Starsky & Hutch? Maybe it was Miami Vice.")

But the ONDCP ad actually isn’t all that bad—especially in anticipation of some of the spots other advertisers have planned. This week’s AdWeek.com poll provides a glimpse of the ones voted Mostly Likely to Suck by its readers. SBB is especially happy to hear that SalesGenie.com is near the top of the list.

And finally, speaking of things that suck, Thursday’s TV Week reports that none of the presidential candidates will be waving flags, shaking hands, and holding babies during the Big Game:

Fox has put an end to speculation that one or more of the presidential candidates might use the highest-rated TV broadcast of the year to air a national campaign spot two days before more than 20 states hold presidential primary and caucus votes.

While no candidate has yet requested time, the network has declared it won’t sell Super Bowl spots to their campaigns.

The reasons: The show is sold out and equal opportunities couldn’t be provided to all candidates, even if some additional time could be found for one to buy in.

Well, as much as we'll hear from the candidates during the next nine months, we could all probably use a break on Game Day. It's going to be hard enough sitting through whatever SalesGenie is letting out of its bottle.