SuperBowl Ads

A sneak peek at Super Bowl ads
The pressure to keep it clean hasn't stopped advertisers from shelling out a record $2.4M per spot.
February 2, 2005: 3:17 PM EST
By Krysten Crawford, CNN/Money staff writer

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - A Super Bowl commercial costs more than ever, but here's one way advertisers can get the most bang for their buck: Produce a tasteless ad that television executives reject, make it publicly available, and let the free publicity flow.

This year at least three advertisers -- Anheuser-Busch, GoDaddy.com and Airborne, a cold remedy maker -- have captured headlines from spots that were vetoed or objected to by football officials and executives at Fox, the network airing Sunday's Eagles-Patriots matchup.

Money can't buy that kind of media exposure. Not unless, of course, you are a Super Bowl advertiser that just shelled out a record $2.4 million for a 30-second spot on what will be the most widely watched TV show of the year.

After last year's unsavory lineup and Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" during the live halftime show, the pressure is on to make sure ads are nothing but good, clean fun.

"I think the wardrobe malfunction will have changed this year's ads significantly," said Bernice Kanner, the author of The Super Bowl of Advertising: How the Commercials Won the Game. "The pendulum has swung so far the other way."

So say good-bye to the flatulent Budweiser horse and the crotch-biting dog. Don't expect to see Mike Ditka hawking impotency drugs. And, yes, recent reports that Mickey Rooney's bare butt was due to make an appearance are true -- but Fox, a News Corp. (Research) unit, spared viewers that searing image by rejecting the ad.

Anheuser-Busch's yanked its planned spoof of the Jackson breast brouhaha last year after game and network officials balked.

GoDaddy.com, a reseller of Internet domain names and a first-time Super Bowl advertiser, reports that one of its ads featuring a buxom brunette gyrating before an unidentified network censorship committee was flat out rejected. Yet another ad like it passed the propriety test.

Bob Parsons, GoDaddy.com's president who subsequently posted the banned ad on his Web log, declined to say what Fox found objectionable about the one take but not the other.

A clip of the taboo ad shows the scantily-clad woman describing to television censors a hypothetical GoDaddy.com commercial. At one point her hand sweeps across her breast and, at another, the strap on her tank top falls off her shoulder.

Parsons doesn't think the ad crossed the line. "This year everybody is on a pretty tight leash," he grumbled.

Here's the GoDaddy.com ad. Really, is it THAT risque???

GoDaddy.com Ad

http://www.big-boys.com/articles/bannedsuperbowl.html

Here's another one that would have been classic!

I understand why the GoDaddy.com add was booted, cause the FCC doesn't like to be mocked. Was it vulgar or revealing in anyway? Definitely not. Oh well, as they've figured out, they can get a lot more exposure being banned than they ever would if it aired. Hell, I doubt come Monday anybody would even remember that ad if it was aired.