While the Super Bowl is the major televised sporting event and a strong revenue producer for whoever has the rights to broadcast it, the commercial spots are growing harder and harder to sell.
This year seems to be even harder as CBS (CBS-A) has only a little over 70 percent of their ads sold with three weeks left before the game; equal to 16 of the 58 spots left to fill.
While it's not unusual to have spots left at this stage, the number of them for CBS is higher than any at this time at this juncture before the game.
The problem CBS has is coming up with ways to get marketers on board without offering discounts that would anger those they've already signed up.
Even taking that into consideration, it's not the cost that has many advertisers balking - they can afford it, rather it goes back to the importance of recall, which is the major metric now being used by marketers.
Another key element in the mix is that companies don't want to use a Super Bowl ad to market an old product or run an existing commercial on. They want to offer a new product or service if they're going to go this route.
“The decision an advertiser faces is not a price dilemma,” said Marc Goldstein, CEO at media agency MindShare. “The reason advertisers may not go in is because of creative issues. No one wants to run an old commercial in the Super Bowl, so you have to go out and spend money to produce a new one. And the advertiser wants to make sure that this commercial does well in all the recall and opinion polls the next day. Many advertisers feel if they do not have a new product to launch, it is not worth the risk.”
In response to this, CBS is starting to offer packages that add to the in-game spots being bought. One incentive is they are including commercials in some of their prime-time shows in the first quarter as a motivator to come on board.
This would lower the risk as the money would be spread across several months rather than a few hours. It would also give those that aren't rolling out new products a nudge to enter the fray.
No matter what happens, CBS execs will be biting their nails up until kickoff.
Comment Preview