Net Firms Betting on Super Bowl Ads

Some Internet companies are paying more to advertise on January’s Super Bowl telecast than they have generated in revenue, and have helped push the average commercial price to a record of about $2 million.

As many as a dozen “dot-com” advertisers are expected to rub shoulders with Anheuser-Busch Cos., Pepsi-Cola Co., Federal Express, Visa International and other longtime Super Bowl advertisers on the Jan. 30 telecast on ABC.

Price evidently has been no object as industry insiders say the average charge for a 30-second Super Bowl commercial has soared 25% from the old high of $1.6 million in the last NFL championship game telecast. Super Bowl ad prices are typically the most expensive on TV.

Marvin Goldsmith, ABC’s head of sales and marketing, declined to comment on the prices.

The price increase is a testament to the Super Bowl’s perennial ability to attract the biggest TV ratings of the year even as audiences for broadcast networks have steadily eroded.

The online marketers in particular want to use the Super Bowl as “a showpiece for their Internet address and to say to the world that we are playing with the big boys,” said Bill Croasdale, a top commercial buyer at Western Initiative Media in Los Angeles.

Dot-com advertisers have bought about 20% of the available commercials in the Super Bowl, industry insiders estimated.

But paying more for a 30-second commercial than a company has generated in sales is a bold move even on a day when excess is the norm.

“We have not generated a dime yet,” conceded Ethan Russman, marketing director of Angeltips.com Inc., which is paying $2 million for Super Bowl exposure with start-up money it has raised mostly from European and Asian investors.

Russman compared Angeltips.com’s recently launched Web site to a dating service that matches entrepreneurs with investors looking for new business concepts. He said the exposure from two ads in the game and a pregame show should build credibility and trust for the New York-based company.

“There is nothing else in the advertising and marketing world that matches the Super Bowl,” he said.

That viewpoint is shared by Michael Zapolin, chief executive and a co-founder of Computer.com Inc., a 5-month-old Internet company that is spending about $3 million for a Super Bowl package that includes one ad in the game and two in pregame shows.

The Maynard, Mass.-based company, dedicated to educating and advising computer novices on what to buy, has generated less than $500,000 in revenue to date.

Another new Super Bowl sponsor is OurBeginning.com Inc., an online stationery superstore that specializes in wedding invitations, birth announcements and notices of “other significant life events.”

The company, founded in March in Orlando, Fla., expects to generate less than $1 million in revenue for its first year, according to founder and Chief Executive Michael Budowski.

But he said it is spending $3.5 million to $4 million for a Super Bowl package.

Budowski said the chance to reach close to 100 million viewers so quickly, in hopes they will check out the Web site, makes it worthwhile.