CBS executives said they had only a "handful" — meaning four or five — Super Bowl spots available 10 days before the big game.
That's considered typical, as every year the last few spots are sold during the final week, generally in the fourth quarter and for $200,000 to $500,000 less than those sold earlier.
In addition to the four or five unsold units, CBS has two "floater" spots for sale that can be inserted following an injury or replay time-out but are not guaranteed to run. The network made a deal with the NFL allowing the league to promote its own cable network through promotional inventory on CBS in exchange for CBS getting to add the two spots in each game, including the Super Bowl.
"We're going to address those when we get to our final unit," said John Bogusz, CBS Sports executive vice president of sales.
Published reports that the average spot has sold for $2.25 million have been disputed by most advertising agency sources, who say that represents the top of the range, not the average price. But they agreed that prices are up about 7 percent when compared to last year, consistent with the gains shown by most sports advertising over the last year.
This year's list of Super Bowl advertisers (see "Super Bowl XXXVIII Advertisers) includes several erectile dysfunction and sexual enhancement drugs, anti-drug and smoking messages, and many familiar brands that are Super Bowl mainstays.
MasterCard, in the game all but one year since 1998, will debut a new "Priceless" spot. Monster.com returns for a sixth straight year, this time adding a second unit.
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| Office supply firm Staples puts on its game face with first-time ad. |
"The Super Bowl has sort of become part of their brand personality," said Peter Gardiner, chief media officer at Monster's ad agency, Deutsch Inc. "They view it as part of their whole marketing programming each year."
He said that while CBS knew the Super Bowl was practically a must-have for Monster, the company still got a "good deal" by linking the media buy to a broader agreement across the entire CBS network and several other Viacom-owned properties.
Five movie studios — which typically pay the most for Super Bowl inventory — will run spots in the game. So will Mitsubishi and Expedia, whose plans to run Super Bowl spots did not leak out until last week.
Staples, a first-time Super Bowl advertiser, gave a preview of a spot developed by Martin|Williams Advertising of Minneapolis in which a clerk demands bribes of desserts to provide office supplies. Then the workers discover how easy it is to procure these items through Staples, and one tough-looking gentleman leans in and demands payback in the form of a "cream puff."
