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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Million-Dollar Ads Commercials On This Year’s Super Bowl Game Break New Ground

Associated Press

Super Bowl fans, are you ready for some … commercials?

More than two dozen advertisers who industry sources say have paid a record average of $1 million per 30-second commercial hope you are.

By Tuesday, the ABC television network had sold 58 of the 60 commercial spaces for the Jan. 29 National Football League championship game.

It’s the first time any TV program has commanded more than $1 million for commercial time. The price is about triple the fare for ads on the highest rated prime time shows and 11 percent more than the $900,000 NBC got for ads in last year’s Super Bowl.

Many advertisers and media buyers say the price is justified because the ad market is strong and the Super Bowl draws the year’s biggest TV audience.

The Super Bowl has become a showcase for advertising creativity - some viewers watch it for the ads alone.

Moreover, it could draw an especially big audience because large-scale TV sports events are scarce, with no Olympics this year or World Series last fall.

But Richard Kostyra, president of the media buying service Media First International, said the price still is too steep for some companies. “A lot of advertisers I have talked to have blinked at the rate,” he said.

Anheuser-Busch Inc. has used the telecast for the past six years to run ads keyed to its Bud Bowl matching animated bottles of Budweiser and Bud Light.

For the first time this year, the brewer began running Bud Bowl commercials a month before the game to give merchants an even greater reason to showcase Bud’s promotional displays.

Previously, the Bud Bowl was played in four 60-second ads running during the Super Bowl telecast. This year, only the finale will air in the game and the brewer will use its other commercial time for brands ads.

Advertisers often have used the telecast to introduce products or new campaigns. Apple Computer Inc. set the standard in 1984 with an arresting commercial that introduced the Macintosh computer.

Nike Inc., Pepsi-Cola Co., McDonald’s Corp., Chrysler Corp. and Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. are expected to introduce commercials or products this year.

Nike, Pepsi and McDonald’s declined to discuss their Super Bowl plans. But Chrysler hopes this year’s ads for its Dodge Stratus boost awareness of the new compact as much as its Neon ads did for its new subcompact during last year’s game. Goodyear is introducing new tires for light trucks.

Some one-time Super Bowl advertisers are sitting this one out.

Gillette won’t advertise for the second consecutive year. “We save it for product launches,” said spokesman Eric Kraus.

Reebok International, the shoe marketer from Stoughton, Mass., has a new ad featuring Orlando Magic star Shaquille O’Neal but will launch it on the OrlandoPhoenix NBA game telecast a week earlier, spokesman Dave Fogelson said.

He said the ad promotes new shoes endorsed by O’Neal that will already be in stores and Reebok didn’t want to wait another week for the Super Bowl.

Norwegian Cruise Line and Alamo Rent A Car Inc. won’t be back this year despite what they called a good experience from last year’s game.

“We think the message has gotten out loud and clear and therefore the need to be on the Super Bowl goes down in a sense,” Norwegian’s president, Adam Aron, said from Coral Gables, Fla.

Norwegian launched a new ad in the “It’s different out here” campaign on the less expensive Orange Bowl college football telecast Jan. 1.

Alamo, based in Fort Lauderdale, celebrated its 20th year in business with a 90-second commercial on the Super Bowl last year. It showed a couple growing old driving all the miles in “Alamo territory.”

Advertising director Donald Moonjian said the ad helped boost awareness of Alamo’s service but Alamo never intended to be a regular Super Bowl advertiser. “If you haven’t got something new to say, it’s almost like ‘why are you buying the Super Bowl?”’ he said.

A Super Bowl newcomer, the National Pork Producers Council, plans a campaign that builds on its “The other white meat” theme started in 1987.

“It’s risky, but it’s risky for us not to be doing something like this,” said Michele Hanna, advertising director for the Iowa-based council. She was mum on details but said they’d be memorable.

“Super Bowl viewers expect the advertisers to be the leaders … We’re not going into this blind,” she said.