America couldn't stop chatting about the Super Bowl last week.
But the talk had nothing to do with the nail-biting finish of the
game and everything to do with the baring of Janet Jackson's breast
at the end of the halftime show. (The FCC has called for an
investigation into what happened and the NFL said in a statement
that MTV was unlikely to produce a Super Bowl musical show again).
Even the post-mortems on the commercials that ran during the game,
at $2.3 million per 30-second spot, took a backseat to the breast
brouhaha. What could the marketers get if they shifted the same
dollar amount to PR from advertising? A few thoughts:
"We would never tell a client to choose between the two. It's
not an either/or situation and the [one airing of the commercial]
is an opportunity to get the client's other messages out."
-- Lisa Kovitz, managing director, brand marketing,
Burson-Marsteller
"Budweiser proved that its previous class of [Super Bowl] spots
were not hitting the [down market] demographics the company wanted
to reach. (In past Super Bowls, Budweiser ran the famous 'Frog'
ads, but this year ran two ads, one featuring a flatulent horse and
another with a dog biting various crotches). With that in mind,
take the $4.3 million Budweiser burned -- not including 'creative'
- and start making appearances at trucker rallies and trailer parks
throughout the country. Imagine the results."
-- Richard Laermer, CEO of RLM PR
"I can run four years of PR campaigns at around $500,000 each
for the price of a lousy 30-second ad that's going to run one time
and one day."
--Jerry Schwartz, founder and president G.S. Schwartz &
Co.