O'Donnell: Super Bowl advertisers pay attention to the importance of women
THE FIRST FEMALE PLAYER to appear in a Super Bowl will be a place-kicker. She'll doink a potential championship-winning field goal and move on to become President of the United States.
#MeToo, #TimesUp and Kamala Harris will be considered relics of a much simpler time in America.
Women? Super Bowl? Impact?
Hardy-har-har. As Kinky Friedman so brutishly sang, "Keep your biscuits in the oven and your buns in the bed."
But wait a second. Please hold all notions.
Women are already significantly impacting the grand communal ritual. None will be more keenly aware of that when SB 53 between New England and the Los Angeles Rams kicks on Sunday (CBS, 5:30 p.m.) than many of the NFL's big-game advertisers.
There are some hard, evolving metrics behind it.
Among them: For the last two Super Bowls, almost half of viewership - essentially 49 percent in both years - has consisted of females.
That segment is a big reason why the most-watched game of the league's conference championships weekend - the Patriots vs. Kansas City - peaked with approximately 55 million viewers. And Sunday's old guard-new guard SB should pull almost double, around 105 million.
Those extra 50 million - where do they all come from? More importantly, where do they all buy from?
A large number of the "event specifics" are women. The most nimble advertisers are responding with increased respect and inclusion.
"This year we're seeing several brands put women front and center in their Super Bowl commercials," Jeanine Poggi - Ad Age's senior editor for media and tech - told The Daily Herald. "In the past, women in Super Bowl ads were heavily sexualized or portrayed as stereotypes, like the 'nagging wife.'
"While we have moved away from those images over the last few years, women are still not featured in Super Bowl commercials nearly as much as men. (But) this year, Bumble, Olay and Toyota, among others, are speaking directly to women."
Some - like the sparkling water Bubly - will try to straddle a gentle middle. The PepsiCo upstart will feature Michael Bublé in his cuddly Super Bowl debut.
Some women will ooh. Some men - especially those who have lived and died with Cher, Patti LuPone and Cody Parkey - might also.
And once America has consumed and gone home, #MeToo will remain relevant. #TimesUp, too.
But for pro football's most era-sensitive sponsors, the key hashtag of them all might be: #NFLTimesTwo.
MIKE DITKA CONTINUES TO REHAB after a major cardiac "event" in November. Still, he drove through a torrential rain across Alligator Alley in south Florida this week to toast the 33rd anniversary of SB XX with Ken Valdiserri and longtime car dealer Tony Cassello.
Wife Diana was alongside, just as she was when Ditka suffered his heart attack on a golf course. Intimates say had The Iron One been alone anywhere at the time, it probably would have been catastrophic.
Valdiserri was the young Bears director of public relations who - in tandem with baby-faced Bryan Harlan - masterfully managed the marvelous media mania that surrounded Chicago's only Super Bowl champs. Ditka, amazingly, hopefully, unbelievably, will turn 80 in October.
YES THE BULLS ARE in the midst of a rollicking rat hole of a season with a head coach right out of Deedle-Dee Productions. But add class gesture by the Reinsdorfs and staff: Management has reached out no fewer than three times to Jerry Sloan to return to the United Center for one more curtain call.
Sadly, Sloan and wife Tammy have declined. At age 77, the essential "Baby Bull" is in year five of a gallant battle with Lewy body dementia. It has gotten to the point that the Sloans - who resiliently still attend almost all Utah home games - have asked Jazz video pickers to no longer show them on the Jumbotron every NBA night.
STREET-BEATIN': Blackhawks tickets are popping up on Groupon and that's bad, you know. (Thank you R.L. Burnside, q.v.) Maybe if the soft-skating Artem Anisimov and his ilk would be reminded that it's still OK to hit back in the NHL, regular sales would also generate a few more checks. … There's nothing wrong with WGN-Channel 9's grating Pat Tomasulo that an implant of legitimate "sports funnyman" wouldn't help. He makes Ryan Baker look like Kevin Hart. … Eloy Jimenez remains the most anticipated arrival in Bridgeport since "Bill Daley For Mayor" signs. NBC Sports Chicago producers Ryan McGuffey and Matt Buckman were pitch-perfect in portraying the White Sox dream weaver in the current digital "Beisbol y Vida."… The recent state championship of coach Elida Vandenbergh and her competitive dance team at Naperville North High was positively aspirational. (Try dancing to Ruelle's "Live Like Legends" some morning while toweling down on the bath mat.) … Purple raining on The Enchanted Lakefront: Pat Fitzgerald is likely a forever thing at Northwestern; Chris Collins likely isn't. The more adroitly visioned are accepting prop bets (-120, pick 'em), with "Fitz forever" payable in the year 2051. … And the nostril flaring in New Orleans remains so intense over the NFC title game debacle that media outlets are calling Sunday's NFL crescendo "SB LIE." This in a ribald region where the ABCs of politics, according to one master practitioner, still billboard as, "Always Bring Cash."
jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com