News
Disney, Uni lead Super Bowl ad parade
By Robert Marich
Feb. 6, 2012—Hollywood placed seven movie advertisements in yesterday’s Super Bowl, according to USA Today, providing a $3.5 million media buy to launch films ranging from a Star Wars theatrical re-release in 3-D to animated kids film The Lorax. Walt Disney Studios and Universal Pictures led the Hollywood parade with two spots each. Again, movies are a big category (along with beverages, automobiles and financial services).
As usual, none of the movie ads made any of the top 10 commercial lists judged to be most exciting. That’s because creative is limited to scenes from the movies, which fans crave to see though this doesn’t impress judges. Still, Hollywood feels the exposure is worth what is the most expensive ad on TV because of the huge viewership for pro-football’s championship game and afterwards consumers replay ads online. The fast-cutting movie ads are popular for reviewing online as viewers parse scenes.
USA Today counted these as in-game national ads in what is TV’s most viewed even with a U.S. audience of around 111 million persons:
The Avengers Disney-May 4 action/adventure
The Lorax Universal-March 2 animation-kids
Act of Valor Relativity-Feb 24 adventure
Battleship Universal-May 18 action/adventure
Star Wars re-release Fox-Feb 10 sci-fi
G.I. Joe-Retaliation Paramount-June 29 action
John Carter Disney-March 9 sci-fi adventure
Also of interest: History Channel sprang for an ad promoting its TV series Swamp People.
Universal was a big buyer with two commercials—perhaps not surprising given its sister company NBC Television telecast the Super Bowl. In the pre-game show, Danny DeVito—who voices a character in The Lorax—appeared to give a shameless plug to the Universal release that also got a commercial.
It can be said the “stars were out” because they even appeared in non-entertainment spots, in additional to being generously sprinkled in commercials for entertainment products. Clint Eastwood voiced and appeared in a Chrysler car ad, Matthew Broderick spoofed a movie role in a Honda ad, Elton John and Flava Flav fronted a Pepsi spot, and Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno took centerstage in an Acura car ad.
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