Stakes are high as Super Bowl has ad winners, losers

CINCINNATI -- The nation's biggest advertiser is running some options for the nation's biggest football game.

Procter & Gamble Co., with a nearly $8 billion global annual advertising budget, has already aimed some brand promotions, using celebrities, online sites and contests, at football fans and families as the Super Bowl approaches on Sunday. But Tide detergent is going for the big play.

The six-decade-old brand has bought its first Super Bowl commercial, one of the 30-second ads on the Fox television network estimated to be going for some $2.7 million this year. It will feature Tide to Go, a cleaning pen that moved Tide beyond the laundry room in 2005.

Making the call on whether to pay big bucks for Super Bowl TV time or use their budget on other outlets is one of the key huddles that marketing teams can have each year. The game is a national must-see event, with more than 90 million men, women and children of all ages and demographics gathered in front of their TV sets.

And best of all for advertisers in this age of media fragmentation and digital video recorders fast-forwarding through commercials, the ads are part of the viewing fun.

"People look forward to the commercials," said Gary Stibel, who heads the New England Consulting Group. "They actually will go to the restroom during the game so they get back for the advertising."

For most marketers, he said, deciding whether to spend on a Super Bowl commercial is a decision like buying a house for most people -- it will be the biggest investment they make.

"It is the single best way to reach the broadest possible audience of Americans," Stibel said.

But companies have to decide whether they have a product that makes sense to push for the huge audience -- and for the cost.

"It's become one of our most popular products, with a very broad, very diverse consumer base," Kash Shaikh, a Tide brand spokesman, said of Tide to Go, meant for quick spot treatments for spills and dribbles. "There's going to be 90 million people at Super Bowl parties eating chips and dip … this is really a perfect opportunity for us."

Some other P&G brands passed on TV commercials in favor of other tie-ins.

P&G's heartburn medicine Prilosec OTC is among a growing number of advertisers exploring online ways to tie into the game, using a low-cost social networking campaign offering Super Bowl tickets and other prizes. Dawn dishwashing liquid has been doing media events and online promotions with football star Emmitt Smith, his wife, Pat, and Conde Nast's culinary site Epicurious.com to tout use of Dawn foam for game day party cleanup.

For St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch Co., it's not a question of if, but how much. This year, the makers of Budweiser beer will have seven commercials, continuing a tradition of heavy advertising for a game the company estimates will be viewed by 41 percent of the nation's beer drinkers.

While some commercials are memorable, others are super bad and quickly forgotten, making the stakes risky for a company without a well-targeted message, Stibel said.

"There are a lot of factors involved here, ranging from management ego at one extreme to very brilliant execution at the other," he said.

Among Super Bowl advertising success stories is Maynard, Mass.-based Monster Worldwide Inc., whose online jobs search site Monster.com's activity soared after its 1999 "When I Grow Up" commercial showing children talking about career futures such as being "a yes-man" or "forced into early retirement."