Super Bowl advertising is usually reserved for the blue chippers that can afford to plunk down $2 million-plus for a 30-second spot.
But more companies are doing quarterback sneaks to take advantage of the big game, even if they are blocked by exclusivity deals. In the case of one small bank, it is buying the game only in the Chicago market to garner a portion of the huge audience expected to tune into the game.
Cole Taylor Bank on Sunday will run not one but three commercials during Sunday’s game.
A new humorous television campaign from its agency, Leo Burnett, paints Cole Taylor as the bank that understands its main customers: small and midsize businesses.
One spot, titled “Wide Awake,” opens with a man staring wide-eyed in bed while Roy Orbison’s tune “In Dreams” plays in the background. As the camera pulls away from the still-awake man, the commercial cuts to a line: “We understand what it’s like when it’s your business. Cole Taylor Bank.”
Another, called “Stress Test,” shows a man walking on a treadmill while a doctor asks him a few routine questions, such as his plans for a coming fishing trip. When he asks about the man’s business expansion, the heart monitor suddenly starts beeping, and the doctor taps the monitor to make sure it’s not broken.
The advertising buy is unusual for a business the size of Cole Taylor. But with local stations able to sell a handful of spots in each hour of programming, smaller companies are beginning to take advantage of the game’s big viewership.
Executives wouldn’t comment on how much Cole Taylor is spending, but it’s a fraction of what it would have cost the bank to buy a national spot.
ABC-owned WLS-Ch. 7 would not disclose how much it is charging for the local spots.
“Once they saw the work we were producing and the opportunity for the Super Bowl came up, they decided to take advantage of it,” said Jon Moore, executive creative director on the spots.
The strategy to buy locally isn’t new, though the competition to buy the local time is more heated than in the past.
While Cole Taylor’s strategy is focused solely on Chicago, other companies looking to get around exclusivity at the Super Bowl are using local buys to try to trump the competition.
Liquor company Diageo is reportedly buying 30-second spots in 64 local markets to launch its Smirnoff Ice Triple Black product.
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Though less efficient than buying a national spot during the game, Diageo had little choice. The company was iced out because of rival Anheuser-Busch’s exclusivity in the category.
Tracking JWT’s job search: Though J. Walter Thompson executives in New York have talked to both male and female candidates for the top job in the agency’s Chicago office, the agency would prefer to fill the job with a top female executive, sources involved in the search say. Among those inside and outside of Chicago who have been on JWT’s wish list at one time or another during the process are Pat Dermody, president of integration at DDB Chicago; Young & Rubicam Chicago chief Kary McIlwain; and Foote, Cone & Belding Chicago CEO Dana Anderson.
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