Super Bowl Commercials Can Make Small, Internet Start-Up Companies Look as 'Big' as Industry Champs

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HOBOKEN, N.J. — The cost to secure a Super Bowl commercial is escalating into the stratosphere. This year’s price for a Super Bowl ad sets new record highs. At $1.6 million for a 30-second spot, or $53,333 per second, who can justify spending that kind of money?

Of course, Apple, Pepsi, American Express, GM and Anheuser Bush can afford it. Their revenues are in the billions of dollars with advertising budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars. But this year there is a new advertiser, hotjobs.com, whose revenues are a meager $4 million with a total of 80 employees.

Some have criticized hotjobs.com, an internet employment site, on why such a small company would spend half of its yearly advertising dollars in 30 seconds.

The reason is part of the new Internet-math according to Gary Lynn, a professor of technology marketing at Stevens Institute of Technology and president of the Technology Marketing Special Interest Group of the American Marketing Association. He is available to comment on this strategy for any articles or segments pertaining to the Super Bowl.

“A 30-second spot during the game will place them on the same field as leading national and multi-national companies such as Volvo, Honda, MasterCard, and others,” said Lynn. “The Super Bowl will give them instant credibility. Internet math is a little funnyócustomers do not have to see bricks and mortar as with traditional businesses to feel comfortable with a company.

“For Internet companies, their web page establishes the perception with customers. And, a small company can develop a pretty spiffy web page virtually as well as a large company. Internet and on-line commerce is leveling the playing field. It used to be only the largest companies could compete internationally and afford international channels of distribution, but today, a company need only to establish a web site, publicize it and people from around the world can become customers,” added Lynn.

Will this ad be a good bet for hotjobs.com and other small companies? Lynn mentions that we will not know for several weeks and perhaps months, but that one thing is for sure, the large companies may be sorry for plugging the Super Bowl into today’s portal to over 100,000 million people. “Small companies will take advantage of this opportunity to reach out to so many potential customers and they just may start beating the large companies at their own game,” notes Lynn.

Lynn, who has written several books on product innovation and entrepreneurship, has himself built four companies and has sold three. He can provide insight into other marketing strategies for new companies and how they can best reach new customers.

WHO: Dr. Gary Lynn Professor, Stevens Institute of Technology glynn@stevens-tech.edu
Media Contact: John La Place, Director of University Communications 201-216-5238, or: jlaplace@stevens-tech.edu