Super Bowl: My Running Diary
I figured I’d put together a running super bowl blog post with thoughts on the big advertising event game from the perspective of an online marketer and a lifelong fan of real football.
10:05 AM - ESPN does a pretty great job of pre gaming, with Steve Young, Chris Berman, Chris Mortenson, and company bringing just about the right level of professionalism, interesting stories, and keeping it focused on the sporting event.
12:30 PM - After a quick trip to Trader Joes, I flip over to FOX. It’s all about the pregame parties, Maxim, and Victorias Secret. Jillian Reynolds and Ryan Seacrest?! What does this have to do with football? Why is Jillian wearing and tophat, and when did she tatoo a mole on her face?
12:43 - they have a red carpet? really?!
12:45 - As I have put the finishing touches on the chili and its starting its 4 hour simmer I wonder what percentage of the pregame will be monetized? Exactly how many advertising impressions will I be subjected to today? I’m guessing I wont go more than a minute being subjected to some sort of consumer messaging. Fox has gone overboard with the onset advertising - its annoying.
1:22- Ryan Seacrest, "And now we have got something very special, Time for make superbowl history, Ladies and gentlemen, here is Paula Abdul’s Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow exclusive Super Bowl performance: GO!" If this is SuperBowl history, I’m flipping back over to ESPN.
1:25 - Buil Riding, or Paula Abdul? Damn.
1:32 SalesGenie.com - I wonder how much they paid to sponsor this segment? Sales leads… just what the average american consumer is thinking about during the Super Bowl pregame. Nachos? Hotwings? Beer? Sales leads?! The days first example of horribly targeted advertising… just because you have the money to advertise during the Super Bowl, doesn’t mean that you should.
1:37: Junior Seau. "There’s good, there’s great, and there one category that we all want to be a part of…ever. You can’t dispute it. Thats on the table." Ever? What does that mean?
1:50: We just wrapped up a 10 minute stretch that included 4 minutes of commercials, 2 minutes of Ryan Seacrest interview Nick Lacey and another 4 minutes of commercials. 100% monetization, even the bottom line has a salesgenie.com logo. Make that 105% as "Jumper" just flashed across the screen unexplainably twice.
2:10 - time for a shower and getting out of the house for a bit, Fox Pregame is NOT worth watching.
3:25: Super Bowl Robot. I hate that Robot. Hopefully the game is more rewarding than everything leading up to it. Giants win the toss. My prediction: Pats 34, Giants 10. MVP is Wes Welker.
3:30: Joe Buck: Finally, Time for football. I agree.
3:38 - The first set of commercials leads off with a Bud Light ad. Guy blowing fire. Boring, C-. Audi follows this up with a Godfather spoof, I like the car. High impact commercial, B+.
3:50. After a 10 minute Giants drive that only netted them 3 points we have more Bud Light, Better effort with the huge cheese guy, B. More SalesGenie.com as well. They must have kicked down about 20 million for today’s efforts after the segment buys, multiple pregame commercials, and another on the games second break. Interesting if a dotcom can see any kind of profitable ROI from this.
5:35: After sleeping through the always lame and overly lengthy halftime I woke up in time to see the Pats first drive stall around midfield and punt. After returning from commercial, Bill Belicheck tossed the red flag on the field and we go back to commercial. After 8 minutes of commercial they give the ball back to the Pats. Could be a big turning point.
5:50 - The Pats drive stalls and after a 4th and 13 incompletion they turn the ball back over to the Giants.
6:45 - mmmm chilli. Tom Brady to Randy Moss, these guys are good.
6:57 - Eli Manning and Plaxico Burress think they are better, wow. What a great drive. This is turning out to be one of the all time great Super Bowls. Eli finding a way to get that ball to David Tyree will go down as one of the most memorable plays of this game.
7:00 - Tom Brady is sacked and the Pats are at least 50 yards away from a field goal attempt with :19 seconds left.
7:03 - amazing. Pats go deep to Moss twice in a row into triple coverage. Eli and the Giants. What an upset.