Companies are hoping ads generate a super response

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By GREG AUMAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 28, 2000

The Tennessee Titans and St. Louis Rams aren't the only surprising entrants in Sunday's Super Bowl XXXIV lineup.

Sure, both teams weren't expected to enjoy such success when the season started, but at least they existed when the season kicked off.

That's more than some of the companies that have reportedly spent more than $2-million for 30-second commercials in ABC's telecast can claim. Mixed in with the perennial corporate giants likeVISA, Pepsi and BMW are at least a dozen Web sites using the biggest TV platform of the year to introduce their companies to the world.

"As we planned our advertising for the year 2000, we thought, "What can we do to really jump-start our company?' " said Michael Budowski, CEO of Orlando-based OurBeginning.com, a site specializing in personal and corporate stationery.

"Not only does the Super Bowl represent the largest reach, but it's the one time of the year that people are actually going out of their way to watch the commercials."

The increased presence of the Internet in the advertising picture (only two sites bought spots in last year's Fox telecast) has helped drive the price of Super Bowl air time up to more than $70,000 per second. Since the game offers a rare opportunity to reach 135-million viewers, companies see it as, well, the Super Bowl of advertising opportunities.

"It's the place to be," said David Blum of Eisner Communications, a marketing agency that studies Super Bowl advertising. "It's the single-best way to introduce a new product, and it's a terrific strategy for those who can afford it. For a number of these companies, their revenues are less than their cost on one Super Bowl commercial. But the word-of-mouth possibilities are huge."

Web sites have used other sports opportunities to get their name out -- a year ago this week, high-speed Internet access company PSINet gave the Baltimore Ravens $105-million over 20 years for the right to call the Ravens' home PSINet Stadium, and for the past five years, baseball's San Francisco Giants have played in 3COM Park.

A similar Internet presence could be seen a month ago during the college bowls, when Web sites went so far as to secure title sponsorships. The Citrus Bowl in Orlando had as its sponsor a home furnishings site, OurHouse.com, which paid $8-million over three years for the title rights and four minutes of commercials during the game.

"Like a lot of Web companies, I think we asked ourselves, "How do you establish your identity as quickly as possible?' " said OurHouse.com's chief marketing officer Gary Briggs.

"To pick up a premium sports property like the Citrus Bowl was a tremendous opportunity. We literally have our name all over it."

The site saw its traffic balloon to eight times its norm the day of the game, and a month later, it's still 25 percent higher than three months ago. Instead of spending $8-million over three years, OurBeginning.com is spending $4-million on one night, but it's hoping for even greater increases for its site.

The site has had about 10,000 visitors per day since its launch last spring, but the company spent more than $1.5-million to upgrade its servers to accommodate as many as 2-million users, an increase of 200 times over what it's had.

"Last year, almost all of the advertisers with Web sites had their computers go down because they couldn't handle the traffic, and that just wasn't an option for us," said Budowski, whose company started with his wife working out of their Orlando home.

A series of four 30-second commercials will run during the pregame show between 2-3 p.m., and one titled "Angry Brides" will air during the second quarter of the game, right before the two-minute warning. Budowski also spent about $1-million to have Disney i.d.e.a.s., a production arm of Walt Disney Co., produce the commercials.

"We really never focused on the other dot-coms, but against all the big industry giants," said Budowski, who has a cameo in the pregame commercials as an English townsman. "We wanted to make sure our commercial stood out, and what we got was a very high-quality piece of work."

The site also will give away $250,000 to one user who registers between now and Feb. 20, but like the rest of the promotional effort, Budowski said it's a small price to pay for the exposure. "Hopefully, people will stop seeing commercials as another dot-com commercial and say, "Hey, that company sells pet supplies,' or "I bought wedding invitations from them,' " he said. "Some of these Super Bowl commercials are the kind you remember for a long time."

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