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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Saturday, January 21, 2006

Super Bowl ads $2.5M for 30 seconds

By Seth Sutel
Associated Press

NEW YORK — If Miss Piggy is dressing up like Jessica Simpson, monkeys are rampaging around office cubicles and networking druids are yammering into cell phones, it can only mean one thing. Super Bowl ads are on the way.

Despite nagging worries about declining TV viewership as more people plug in to their iPods and the Internet, the Super Bowl has proven to be a resilient stronghold of truly mass media. The game, which airs Feb. 5 on Walt Disney Co.'s ABC, is expected to draw some 90 million viewers, along with advertisers who want to reach them.

Super Bowl ads — estimated at about $2.5 million for a 30-second spot this year — cost way more than the top price of $750,000 for a spot on the Olympics, which start on NBC just five days later.

For smaller marketers, that can make up a significant chunk of their annual advertising budget, but there's a certain cachet to being seen on the Super Bowl, which is routinely the most watched broadcast of the year.

To make sure they get their money's worth, several advertisers plan to leverage the impact of their spots this year by rolling out online promotions and other tie-ins.

Emerald Nuts, the snack food brand of Diamond Foods Inc., and men's deodorant Degree are both returning to the Super Bowl after successful debuts in last year's broadcast.

Another of last year's first-timers, CareerBuilder, is also coming back with more ads featuring monkeys as office workers.

Other notable ads in the Super Bowl this year include a spot from Dove soap, Toyota Motor Corp. and Aleve.

Longtime advertisers PepsiCo Inc. and Anheuser-Busch Cos. will also be back.

Pizza Hut, a unit of Yum! Brands Inc., which also owns KFC and Taco Bell, is once again showcasing the Muppets, who won over viewers last year with an airborne Miss Piggy.