The "ruckus raised by Just For Feet's inaugural Super
Bowl ad ... may not be entirely over," as JFF Chair Harold
Ruttenberg said that the company would not pay Fox the $1.6M
for the spot because "it aired in the fourth quarter," not
the third, according to Terry Lefton of BRANDWEEK.
Ruttenberg: "We spent a million-and-a-half marketing the ad,
telling people it was going to be in the third quarter.
It's in the hands of the attorneys now. ... We are not
paying." Fox Sports Senior VP/Media Relations Vince Wladika
said, "In live TV it is difficult to guarantee when the
commercial will run." Wladika said that "some" Super Bowl
"ad contracts promise specific air times and others merely a
best effort," but he declined to disclose the terms of the
JFF deal. Despite the issue of which quarter the ad ran and
criticism for the ad being "racist," Ruttenberg called the
experience a "success," adding, "Just For Feet was a lot
better known the week after the Super Bowl than it was the
week before." Ruttenberg, on Saatchi & Saatchi Rochester,
the ad's creative: "We had an advertising agency that didn't
do their job properly." He had no comment on the agency's
"current standing" on JFF's $25M account (BRANDWEEK, 2/15).
