Pepsi pulls out of Super Bowl advertising, ending 23-year run
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...December 17, 2009
MILWAUKEE — Pepsi will not advertise its drinks in next
year’s Super Bowl on CBS, ending a 23-year run so the company can
focus on a new marketing effort that will appear mostly online. Pepsi beverages have been advertised in the Super Bowl since
1987. Frito-Lay, a unit of parent company PepsiCo Inc., will still
advertise. The company, which is based in Purchase, N.Y., spent $33 million
advertising products like Pepsi, Gatorade, and Cheetos last year
during the Super Bowl, according to TNS Media Intelligence, $15
million of it on Pepsi alone. Ad time last year for the NFL
championship game cost about $3 million for 30 seconds, on average. Those prices may have dipped to as low as $2.5 million per 30
seconds this year, according to Jon Swallen, senior vice president
of research for TNS Media Intelligence. Final figures won’t be
known until after the game, which takes place Feb. 7 and airs on
CBS. The network said last week it has sold about 90 percent of the
game’s commercial time. Package delivery company FedEx also said Thursday it will not
advertise again in the Super Bowl due to costs, the same reason the
company gave last year for sitting it out. Pepsi had been a major advertiser during the Super Bowl.
According to TNS, the company spent $142.8 million on the 10 Super
Bowl ads from 1999 to 2008, second only to Anheuser-Busch, which
spent $216 million. The brewer of Bud Light confirmed Thursday it
will have 5 minutes worth of advertising in the 2010 Super Bowl. Pepsi recognizes Super Bowl ads can be effective for marketing,
spokeswoman Nicole Bradley said, but the game doesn’t work with the
company’s goals next year. “In 2010, each of our beverage brands has a strategy and
marketing platform that will be less about a singular event and
more about a movement,” she said. Notable Super Bowl ads from Pepsi over the years have included
celebrities such as Cindy Crawford, Britney Spears and Will.i.am. The nation’s second-biggest soft drink maker is plowing
marketing dollars into its “Pepsi Refresh Project” starting next
month as its main vehicle for Pepsi. The project will pay at least
$20 million for projects people create to “refresh” communities. A Web site will go live Jan. 13 where people can list their
projects, which could range from helping to feed people to teaching
children to read. People can vote starting Feb. 1 to determine
which projects receive money. Pepsi estimates the effort will fund thousands of projects and
says other businesses will pledge money, too. The company plans to have events related to its new effort at
the Super Bowl. Pepsi’s move leaves the Super Bowl soft-drink field open for
Coca-Cola Co., which has been widely reported to be advertising
this year, though Coca-Cola declined to comment. The world’s
biggest soft drink maker was the eighth-highest spender on Super
Bowl ads from 1999 to 2008. It spent $30.5 million on two Super
Bowls within that decade. Most advertisers on the Super Bowl do not have as long a history
as Pepsi, Swallen said, averaging three to four years in a row
before dropping out. They will often cycle back in, though, because
it is a rare chance to reach such a wide audience. The 2009 matchup
between Arizona and Pittsburgh attracted 95.4 million people. “It is arguably the one TV programming event of the year where
people tune in as much for the commercials as they do for the game
that’s being played on the field,” he said.
Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press
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