Last year businesses such as Budweiser and Pepsi paid out almost $4-million for just 30-seconds of advertising air time during the Super Bowl which was watched by some 108-million viewers.
This year one lucky company will have its own 30-second ad during the third quarter of the game, but this ad will be the culmination of a competition sponsored by Intuit, the makers of QuickBooks and Turbo-tax.
Can you imagine, one day you are ‘making widgets at $9.00 each, and the next day you are the talk of 100-million people who saw your add and want to buy some of your widgets. The winner can be certain that their lives will almost certainly never be the same; akin to turning on your first website only to find out that you have had 100-million hits in the first 30 seconds through some 'internet' routing error.
The winning company will need to be prepared to handle the sudden surge in business it gets from the ad. Intuit says the ability to deal with their new found fame will be one of the criteria companies must meet to make it into the final stages of the competition.
Super Bowl commercials are noted for being ‘out there’, and advertisers compete with each other over their ads just as much as the teams playing the Big Game, if not more so. Advertising agencies strive to come up with the most memorable or funniest ad for their clients. Viewers post their reactions on Facebook or tweet their comments the moment a commercial airs, and media discussions and around the water-cooler chats concerning the best and worst ads last for days.
While most companies advertising during the game are well known, in a few instances relatively unknown companies or products have come into prominence through an initial Super Bowl ad. One such example took place in 1984 when a little known company called Apple created a buzz with an ad about their upcoming product, the Macintosh, and the rest is ‘Apple history’.
Starting July 31st Intuit is accepting entries from any kind of small business by signing up at: www.SmallBusinessBigGame.com, where each entrant will tell their business story. The public will vote on who advances to the 2nd round of the competition. The 50,000 companies with the most votes will then continue and Intuit employees will vote for the 20 best. Four of those will become finalists chosen by Intuit employees, and the public will then choose the winning company.
Intuit will pay for the winner's commercial, and while only the winner’s ad will air during the Super Bowl, each of the other three finalists will be featured in commercials that will air at other times as part of Intuit’s overall advertising plan.
Source: Miami Herald “A small business star to be born this Super Bowl”
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/07/30/3531804/a-small-business-star-to-be-born.html#storylink=cpy