Well over 100 million people in the United States are expected to watch Super Bowl 58 later today. Because the NFL Championship Game has such a large live television audience, it has become the place where companies expect new commercials to launch their marketing campaigns. That's why buying on-air commercial time can cost companies an estimated $7 million for just a 30-second spot.
Microsoft bought a minute of ad time during Sunday's game to promote its generative AI assistant Copilot. But this isn't the first time a major technology company or even a small company has done this. A new commercial will air. In fact, it was the technology company that many credit with turning the Super Bowl into the launching pad for the products and commerce that it is today.
Apple Macintosh 1984 Advertisement – 1984 Super Bowl
The commercial Apple developed to launch the Macintosh PC during Super Bowl 18 is still considered one of the best TV ads of all time. Directed by Tony Scott, director of Alien and Blade Runner, this commercial based on George Orwell's 1984 is still pretty effective.
Fun fact: Officially, the Apple Macintosh Super Bowl ad only aired twice as an actual commercial. According to Folklore, the second time the commercial aired was on January 22, 1984, during the nationally televised Super Bowl. The commercial first aired a few weeks earlier, on December 15, 1983, on Twin Falls television station KMVT. , Idaho, 1am This was done to qualify for next year's advertising and commercial awards.
Pets.com Commercial – Super Bowl 2000
The dot-com era of both business and the Internet in the late 1990s and early 2000s saw many companies grow rapidly and then quickly flame out. The peak of the dot-com era was probably Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000. This Wikipedia entry states that more than 14 dot-com companies purchased commercials during the game's broadcast. They spend an average of $2.2 million on the big spots.
Many of these companies were later acquired by other companies or shut down completely right after the big Super Bowl ad. Perhaps the most infamous example is a commercial created by Pets.com. The website's famous sock puppet dog started singing “Baby, Please Don't Go.” However, the site never generated enough revenue to support Pets.com's heavy advertising. In November 2000, less than a year after that ad, Pets.com was shut down.
Godaddy.com Commercials – Super Bowl 2005 and Beyond
When domain name registration company GoDaddy.com decided to run an ad during the 2005 Super Bowl, it ran with the theme “Sex Sells.” The ad featured a woman speaking to lawmakers about the business. During this “hearing” one of the woman's shoulder straps comes off.
CNN reported at the time that the ad was scheduled to air twice during the Super Bowl, but the NFL canceled the second run because it did not pre-screen the ad in advance.
Despite that move, GoDaddy.com was a regular advertiser in subsequent Super Bowls, many of which included suggestive content. But in 2015, many felt the company had finally gone too far. A few days before that year's Super Bowl, the company previewed a commercial for the game.
It depicts a cute puppy trying to return home to its human family. The owner then surprised the puppy by saying it was only sold on a website created through GoDaddy.com.
The ad received significant backlash from dog owners, and as CNBC reported at the time, GoDaddy.com decided not to air the commercial during the Super Bowl.
BlackBerry Z10 Commercial – Super Bowl 2013
BlackBerry was looking to get back on track in early 2013 after losing smartphone market share to Apple's iPhone and Android smartphones. BlackBerry decided to run a Super Bowl ad to promote its new BlackBerry Z10 mobile phone, which is unusual. Method.
Instead of showing the phone's features and what it can do, this ad showed what the BlackBerry Z10 can't do. These included a cell phone's owner bursting into flames, growing giant legs, and a truck turning into thousands of ducks. While it was certainly a creative choice, spending all that money to create an ad and buy airtime to air it during the Super Bowl just didn't work out.
The phone failed to sell, and in November 2013, BlackBerry ousted the marketing director who designed the Super Bowl ad. The Globe and Mail site claimed that many of the company's executives disliked the commercial, and that they may have a point.
We can also explore even more Super Bowl tech commercials over the decades. I'll probably post another article exploring these ads further in the run up to the 2025 Super Bowl.
