It’s time of year again. As Super Bowl Sunday sits on the horizon, advertisers have been in overdrive pooling together the resources necessary to be placed in the sacred ad spots. While the NFL is undoubtedly the most televised sport it is also conveniently the most marketable. According to a recent Wall Street Journal Article, 11 Minutes of Action, a typical NFL broadcast is 174 minutes, yet over 1 hour of that broadcast is devoted entirely to ads. So the competition for advertisers is almost as intense as the game itself given that the Super Bowl will easily be the most watched televised event with almost 1/3 of America tuning in. With this level of hype it’s easy to see why advertisers will dole out $30 million per 30 seconds of airtime.
Yet according to a recent Reuters article, Rejected or not, Super Bowl ads generate buzz, ads can still tap into the Super Bowl hype without even paying for the $30 million spot. The news and attention that’s generated when an ad is rejected for inappropriate content is enough to drive visitors or business to a company’s website. Getting rejected is a rare high-profile opportunity for these advertisers.
The internet domain company, GoDaddy.com, has already generated hype in the past with its provocative Super Bowl ads. But advertising executives at GoDaddy have discovered that by pushing the envelope too far, their rejected ads can generate as much attention as their Super Bowl ads had in the past. And all for free. This past Thursday the company invited viewers to watch its latest rejected ad on the company website.
Companies such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and Mancrunch.com, a gay dating site, have all had similar experience with their rejected ads.
As other advertisers begin to catch on to this loophole in the submission process, we can expect a whole cottage industry emerging where companies try their best to exploit a network rejection.
Great article. I look forward to watching the game this Sunday!
Best site ever!