The Americans have their annual Super Bowl championship to unveil the latest (and supposedly best) big budget TV advertising campaigns. The 2009 Super Bowl Sunday adspend was estimated at $44B, although quality-wise, it left much to be desired
Here in the Philippines, we have our very own Super Bowl in the person of world-renowned Pinoy superhero Manny Pacquiao. Each of his fights bring a plethora of advertisements, be it in the numerous TV spots in between rounds, on the ringside (SMART Communications), or even the Pacman’s shorts (as far as we could see, it had Café Puro, Ricoa, Motolite, PAGCOR, Head & Shoulders, RGB, and of course, Nike). Pretty soon, you wouldn’t be able to tell what color his shorts are because it will be covered with logos.
The jury is still out on how much ad spend was actually spent in total, but suffice to say, Top Rank and Solar TV and GMA should be very happy campers. Top Rank supplies the live feed to local cable operators, while Solar sells the feed to restaurants, movie houses, and apparently, even to local government officials who wanted to provide free live matches to their constituents.
Of course, Solar also bought blocks of airtime from GMA Network, and sold advertising packages from that. Sources disclosed that the airtime for the live telecast of the recent Pacquiao-Clottey match went as high as PhP 600,000 (over US$13,000) for a premium spot and PhP 43,000 (US$ 944) for the same spot on the fourth telecast on Solar’s channel. For the initial broadcast, advertisers shelled out PhP40,500,00 (approximately US$889,500) for a presentor’s package ; PhP21,900,000 (US$481,000) for a major sponsorship, and PhP9,000,000 (US$198,000) for a minor sponsorship.
That’s a lot of money changing hands, but considering that the fight lasted until the 12th round—and it kept tens of millions of Filipinos glued to the set for just as long—it was well worth the investment.
Now that it’s already been established as a media money maker, let’s see if the quality of the ads in future Pacquiao matches will go the way of Super Bowl Sundays, where people look forward to whatever new ads will be unveiled by the top brands.
