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Super Bowl beer ads Budweiser spots are hugely popular with fans Feb 1, 2008 It’s hard to imagine a Super Bowl without beer commercials, considering Anheuser-Busch has been the game’s leading advertiser for years and this year plans to pour more than $10 million into the event. But that’s the idea being touted by the Marin Institute, an alcohol watchdog group based in San Rafeal, Calif. Marin is calling on National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell and Anheuser-Busch chief executive August Busch IV to stop advertising and marketing beer during the Super Bowl. The reason? “The NFL identifies the Super Bowl as a family-friendly televised sporting event, so their opinion of what family-friendly is is clearly not the same as ours,” says Michael J. Scippa, Marin Institute’s advocacy director. “Nearly 17 million youth watch that every year, and they’re being exposed to very clever, very funny, very powerful brand messaging – and clearly there are strong links between exposure and usage, especially in underage drinkers.” There are studies to back up that point. A study in the January 2006 edition of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine found that youth who saw more alcohol advertisements on average drank more. But while Marin says the issue is a moral one, it’s difficult to imagine the NFL severing what’s been a huge cash cow for the league and the beer company. A-B has spent $247 million on Super Bowl ads over the last two decades, according to TNS Media Intelligence, and last year was the game’s top advertiser with 5 minutes of commercial time, 30 seconds more than the previous year, according to Nielsen. Anheuser-Busch has bought the most time on the game since at least 2003 and will once again this weekend. Bud Light spots nearly always take first place in the various postgame ad rating polls. Beer brands have seen a good return on that money. Studies have shown that more beer is consumed on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day of the year, and beer sales begin to spike two weeks before the game. “We know alcohol is without a doubt the most-used drug among teenagers from our own studies and what we’ve read of others, and the societal cost of underage drinking is measured in billions of dollars,” Scippa says. “And so that’s pretty much why we feel the NFL as well as Anheuser-Busch should just back off and end the policy of this deep association of beer and Super Bowl, beer and sports, beer and football. “It’s not healthy for our youth.” Though this is the first time Marin has called out the NFL and Anheuser-Busch before the Super Bowl, it has been vocally opposed to such advertising for roughly a decade. Scippa says Marin hasn’t heard any response from the NFL yet but says, “I think they’ll be strategic in anything they do.” The Super Bowl airs Sunday at 6:18 p.m. on Fox. A-B has seven spots airing on the telecast. Meanwhile, in other younger viewer ratings for the week ending Jan. 27: Among teens 12-17, Fox led with a 3.6 rating and 12 share, followed by NBC at 1.3/4, ABC and the CW at 1.2/4, Univision and CBS at 0.9/3, Telemundo at 0.2/1, Telefutura at 0.1/0, and Azteca at 0.0/0. Among kids 2-11, Fox was first with a 2.3/8, followed by Univision at 1.5/6, NBC at 0.9/4, ABC at 0.9/3, the CW and CBS at 0.6/2, Telemundo at 0.4/2, Telefutura at 0.2/1 and Azteca at 0.1/0. The top five shows among kids 2-5: 1. Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob SquarePants” (Monday 11 a.m.); 2. Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob SquarePants” (Monday 11:30 a.m.); 3. Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob SquarePants” (Monday noon); 5. Nickelodeon’s “Dora the Explorer” (Monday 9:30 a.m.); 5. Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob SquarePants” (Monday 10:30 a.m.); 5. The top five shows among kids 6-11: 1. Disney’s “Minutemen” (Friday 8 p.m.); 2. Nickelodeon’s “Zoey 101” (Sunday 8:30 p.m.); 3. Nickelodeon’s “Zoey 101” (Sunday 8 p.m.); 4. Disney’s “Minutemen” (Saturday 8 p.m.); 5. Nickelodeon’s “NBB Movie: The Sidekicks” (Monday8 p.m.)
The top five shows among kids 9-14: 1. Nickelodeon’s “Zoey 101” (Sunday 8:30 p.m.); 2. Disney’s “Minutemen” (Friday 8 p.m.); 3. Fox’s “American Idol” (Tuesday 8 p.m.); 4. Nickelodeon’s “Zoey 101” (Sunday 8 p.m.); 5. Fox’s “American Idol” (Wednesday 8 p.m.)
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