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Super Bowl Sunday, the annual high holiday of advertising, could shape up to be a dot.com bloodbath. Internet companies have helped push through record TV ad sales for this year's game, bringing ABC an estimated $130 million in revenue for its Jan. 30 broadcast. With companies now paying an average of $2.2 million for a 30-second ad, an increase of more than a third over last year's Supe ad rates, the big question is: Will the money be well spent?
In many cases, the answer is probably not, according to industry experts who gathered at a Jan. 19 meeting of New York's Silicon Alley Breakfast Club. The panel, which debated the issue of whether dot.com ads work on prime-time TV, pointed to a shifting environment for Internet advertising and released survey data indicating that TV ads are among the least effective ways to generate traffic to a site. That's likely to fuel fresh fears in the minds of skittish Net executives who are struggling to figure out how to grab and retain visitors to their sites while they still have the funds to do it.
About a dozen dot.com ads are set to debut on this year's NFL championship program, up from only two last year. That doesn't include would-be players who dropped out after ABC demanded millions up front from advertisers with no payment history or credit record. Even so, the event is drawing online contenders from Monster.com and HotJobs.com, both of which advertised last year, to Pets.com and the cryptically named Kforce.com.
SUPER SURGE.
All hope to replicate the phenomenal success of 1999's Monster.com "When I Grow Up" ad, an ironic black-and-white montage of sullen-faced children aspiring to dead-end jobs. The ad generated an explosion of traffic and brand awareness, says panelist Edward E. Boches, chief creative officer at Mullen Advertising, which produced the ad. And the payoff wasn't just a dramatic increase in traffic, which soared the next day from an average of 99,000 to more than 2.2 million job searches, according to Boches. The number of resumes posted by job prospectors also jumped from 1,500 to 8,000. "When it leveled off, the numbers were still much higher," says Boches.
But that was then. Even with $4 billion in dot.com ad spending last year, Boches notes that a quarter of consumers in one survey can't remember a single Internet brand. He argues that having a recognized brand is going to be even more important this year following a holiday season the blitzed viewers with wacky, offensive or dumb Internet ads (see BW Online Special Report, "Dot.Com TV Ads: The Good, the Bad, the Left-Us-Clueless").
What made the Monster.com spot work, in Boches' view, was the ad's emotional appeal -- "supporting people's right to a more rewarding career path" -- instead of bragging that the site contains lots of job positions. The Maynard (Mass.) job site is back with five more spots for one ad in this year's game, although it donated one spot to a charitable group that encourages mentor programs -- and it just became the first dot.com to sponsor the Olympics.
"TELL A FRIEND."
Still, the novelty of TV ads promoting Net companies has worn off, says Patrick Keane, another panelist and director of online advertising strategies at New York's Jupiter Communications. Word-of-mouth is the most compelling driver of Net traffic, according to a recent Jupiter survey, prompting 57% of those surveyed to visit a new site. A mention in magazines or newspapers was next at 42%, followed by online ads at 24%. An ad on television fell near the bottom of the list, persuading only 12% of surveyed consumers to try a new site. Keane views the Internet as more of a utility than a means of entertainment. "If you go to a site and like it, you'll tell a friend," he says. "If you don't have a great experience, you'll never go back."
That's not so different from the ad challenges facing traditional companies, notes veteran advertiser Jay Chiat. "About 86% or 87% of dot.com ads aren't that effective, but that number is the same for other advertising as well," says Chiat, who chairs ScreamingMedia, an Internet company that distributes custom-filtered content to different sites. What's more, he contends that most people go to the Super Bowl to eat chips and hang out with friends. "They don't even care about the team" -- never mind the ads that are wedged between the play.
No wonder some dot.com companies decided to back out of the big game. Boches, for one, thinks it's a wise move. "You're asking consumers to remember 10 new brand names," he says, arguing that there are better ways to spend $4 million in building traffic. That said, he's back this year with clients like Monster.com and Oxygen Media. With giddy stock valuations and millions in seed money, Net upstarts still see the Super Bowl as the place to make a big bet in the hopes of generating a monster buzz.
Diane Brady in New York EDITED BY PAUL JUDGE
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