Super Bowl, Sex, and Super-Sized Spots

While I’m a bit disappointed, seemingly every year now, when my San Diego Chargers don’t advance to the Super Bowl – I do take great interest in a good championship game and great commercials. Coming from a rich news background, I can appreciate the value of commercials because without them, there wouldn’t be television news. Ad revenue pays salaries. It’s that simple.

The Super Bowl is the one time of year, television viewers actually crave commercials.  And advertisers take full advantage of our weaknesses, knowing exactly what tugs at our amygdala.  Fast cars, cute babies, talking animals, sexy shirtless sweaty men, and sexylicious bikini-clad beauties are sure to round out a number of the 70 or so 30-second Super Bowl Super-Sized spots.

And the usual big guns are on the front line again this year spending about $126,000 per second to gain your buy-in:  Anheuser-Busch, Subway, Doritos, VW, Coke, Pepsi, E-Trade, Calvin Klein, GoDaddy.com, and Taco Bell to name a few.  Apparently, General Motors and Dr. Pepper aren’t playing. Too pricey.

And every year, it seems, each 30-second spot is a bit of a mini-Hollywood production about a story with a surprise ending as viewers hang on to the edge of their seats.  Of course it helps that each year, companies are paying big bucks to get top talent to endorse their products and play bit part roles. This year’s A-listers include:  Danica Patrick, Kate Upton, Usher, Amy Poehler, Bar Refaeli, and The Rock (is he still even alive?).

So I’d thought it’d be fun to share some super facts about Super Bowls, super commercials and super bowl foods, so you can sound super smart at the water cooler tomorrow.

The FCC sanctioned the first television commercial in 1941.

Watchmaker, Bulova, paid $9 for the world’s first television commercial which aired on WNBT in New York in July 1941. The 10-second ad ran during a live broadcast of the Brooklyn Dodgers vs. Philadelphia Phillies.

Kids watch 30,000-40,000 commercials a year, about 100 a day.

By the time you’re 65, you’ll have watched nearly 2 million commercials.

In 1967, a 30-second Super Bowl commercial cost $37,500 with an audience of more than 24,400,000.

In 2013, a 30-second Super Bowl ad costs about $3.8 million, talent not included, with an anticipated audience of more than 111,000,000.

It’s estimated 50% of the Super Bowl viewers this year will be women.

Women make up 80% of the buying power in the home.

Yet, 35% of Super Bowl ads are steered toward men. The remaining are mostly gender neutral.

Go figure GoDaddy.com.

It’s believed ‘super’ Super Bowl ad fever started in 1984 when Apple ran its “1984” commercial (based on George Orwell’s novel) campaign ad introducing the Macintosh computer.

Anheuser-Busch enhanced the fever in 1989 with its “Bud Bowl” campaign where small bottles of Bud beer made football plays.  Men + beer + beer making football plays = makes total cents.

Commercials have titles.

Anheuser-Busch’s “911 Tribute,” which aired only once, in Super Bowl XXXVI (2002), is one of the most popular commercials to air.  It’s one of my personal favorites. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d17gXJp5v8.  Like most commercials, it’s an illusion, but it still gives me chills. Never forget.

Super Bowl XLV – Green Bay Packers (31) vs. Pittsburgh Steelers (25) – was the most watched program in television history, knocking out Super Bowl XLIV, which knocked out the final episode of Mash, which held the title for 28 years.  It was one of the only Super Bowl games that had no cheerleaders.

In 1954, the Baltimore Colts was the first NFL team to have cheerleaders.

26 of the 32 teams in the NFL have cheerleaders.  The Chicago Bears, Cleveland Browns, NY Giants, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers do not have cheerleaders.

NFL cheerleaders are not allowed to date/fraternize with players.  This is not the case in college or high school.

NFL cheerleaders make about $75 per game.

The average American does not have the body or stamina of a cheerleader because while the ladies burn off about 10,000 calories during a Super Bowl game, the average American eats 1,200 calories during the game. Our favorites:

1.2 billion wings

37% will eat those wings with blue cheese, unless you live up north, that increases to 50%

11 million pounds of chips

70 million pounds of guacamole (not a type 7-0)

14 billion hamburgers

50 million cases of beer

So, I guess it’s no wonder 6% of us won’t be sharing any of these super facts at the watercooler Monday because that’s the percentage that call in ‘sick’ the day following the Super Bowl.

Now, time to go get ‘supered’ up for the big game!

Go Chargers!!!! You’ll get there one of these years, cheerleaders included.