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Local advertising time for the Feb. 3 Super Bowl on CBS network affiliate KGMB-TV is going fast.
At the network, the in-game ad time essentially is sold out.
Locally, available in-game slots are about "90 percent sold out," said Rick Blangiardi, Hawaii News Now general manager, on Friday.
Given queries being fielded from additional local sponsors, it will sell out, he predicted, as it did on sister station KHNL-TV, an NBC affiliate, last year.
Just who the confirmed sponsors are and whether they are preparing new commercials for the big day is yet undisclosed.
"Everybody can see … when they watch it," said Cheryl Oncea, general sales manager.
She declined to reveal sponsors’ names in deference to strategies they may want to keep close to the vest until game time.
Oncea also didn’t reveal the cost of airing a commercial, but said given the audience size, it is a great value.
It is fair to assume that Hawaii News Now is not getting $3.7 million to $3.8 million for each 30-second ad buy, which is the going rate for national ads during the game. However, Blangiardi offered to accept that much from your columnist in exchange for half a minute of airtime. For reasons unexplained, he chuckled when offered a check.
"Everybody loves to have the Super Bowl because it has become such a phenomenon from (an advertising) standpoint," Blangiardi said. "Anybody and everybody wants to advertise in it, with creative ideas that they want to take to an extra-large audience."
Overnight Nielsen ratings are taken to measure the viewing audience, and "you’re going to hear all these monster numbers," he said. No matter how large the national audience share is, the Hawaii audience share is traditionally larger, Blangiardi said. For example, if the national audience comes in at 82 percent of people watching TV at the time, the Hawaii share could be 86, he said.
The time of the broadcast in Hawaii also makes a huge difference. Air times on the mainland can have the game run into the night, while in Hawaii, "even for post-Super Bowl parties, it’s still light out. It’s a different dynamic than in other places," Blangiardi said.
"It’s a great catalyst" for get-togethers for which local people don’t need nearly as big a reason as the Super Bowl.
Industry bible Advertising Age magazine has been doggedly updating its coverage of the national companies whose commercials will appear during the broadcast.
The rundown of sponsors the magazine has confirmed includes a bit of back story on each one, including an estimate of when spots will air, if that information has been obtained.
Ad Age reports that Ford, which will advertise its re-branded Lincoln automobiles during the game, traditionally avoids the Super Bowl. However, your columnist can’t help but remember a Ford spot that aired just before the game broadcast in 2004.
The long-format commercial raised chicken skin and eyebrows as a sleek, European-looking beauty of automotive design screamed elegantly around a racetrack. The eye-bugging hunk of burning automotive love was introduced as the Ford GT 500, "the pace car for an entire company," on the occasion of its centennial.
The national commercial spawned a local column about the impending availability of the car in Hawaii because it was just so memorable.
Should there be memorable moments in this year’s game, good or bad, they’ll get tongues a-wagging at the third annual Super Bowl Ad Review staged by the American Marketing Association Hawaii Chapter.
This year’s panelists include Toby Tamaye of AT Marketing LLC, James Sereno of Kinetic Productions Inc. and April Rutherford of Anthology Marketing Group. The masters of ceremonies will be husband-and-wife team Liz Chun of Pali Momi Medical Center and anchor Steve Uyehara from Hawaii News Now.
Previously staged in the Anthology Marketing Group offices downtown, this year’s luncheon event will be at the Showroom at Dave & Buster’s on Feb. 6 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Reservations can be made online, and cost is $30 for members of AMA Hawaii and the American Advertising Federation Hawaii Chapter, or $40 for nonmembers. Queries for additional information can be emailed to events@amahawaii.org.
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On the Net:
» amahawaii.org/this-months-event.asp
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Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
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