Political Ads May Invade Super Bowl

Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., speaks at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington Va., Wednesday, April 11, 2007. McCain called the four-year Iraq conflict "necessary and just" and accused anti-war Democrats, including the party's top White House candidates, of recklessness. (AP Photo/Don Petersen) (Don Petersen - AP)

Added Tracey, "The media buyers are going to earn their money this time around."

And if their choice is the Super Bowl, it won't be cheap.

A 30-second spot in this year's Super Bowl cost as much as $2.6 million _ enough to consume the proceeds of a recent Clinton fundraising gala in Washington, D.C. Politicians can get a bit of a break, though, because under federal law they are entitled to the lowest rate charged in that time slot for that broadcast. That could shave a few hundred thousand dollars off the top price.

Still, the ad better be good.

"You can't run your same old schlock on the Super Bowl," Tracey said. "You probably have to pay a higher price for doing that."

It could be worth it.

Consider that 94.1 million people watched this year's Super Bowl game, according to Nielsen Media Research. Consider, too, that the most-watched moment of the broadcast, as measured by TiVo rewinds and downloads, was not a highlight of the game but an ad for Bud Light.

Of the more than 20 states contemplating or already scheduled to hold a Feb. 5 primary or caucus, 14 have a total of 18 NFL teams. Chances are good that a primary state will have a team in the game with a sizable and attentive audience to boot.

What's more, a good Super Bowl ad benefits from vast media attention, extending the buzz it generates for days. "If your spot is really good, you can end up quadrupling the benefit of that ad," said Tobe Berkovitz, associate dean of communications at Boston University and an expert on political advertising.

But, Berkovitz cautioned: "You run a piece of junk and you're going to take a hammering that will be incredibly destructive to your campaign."

Running a national network ad would defy a trend in political campaigns to use "micro-targeting" techniques to reach voters with surgical precision.

Forced by strategic and financial considerations, campaigns might forgo a national ad and purchase Super Bowl slots allotted to local network affiliates, strategists said. That would avoid the high production costs necessary to be in the same class with Budweiser or FedEx and their huge advertising budgets.

It would also give campaigns the flexibility to adjust their ads to any shifts in the political terrain and concentrate on states that are in play for them.

"What we're more likely to see at that juncture is a negative ad from someone at the last minute before voting," Devine, the Democratic strategist, said. "Those ads can be very impactful no matter what the quality of production _ and they can be memorable, too."

This year, VoteVets.org, a group critical of the Iraq war, made a small splash with a 30-second Super Bowl ad opposed to troop increases in Iraq. It only ran on three CBS affiliates _ in Washington, D.C., Portland, Maine, and Duluth, Minn. To air the ad on one Washington station, the biggest market of the three, cost $91,000.

Politics and the Super Bowl have not always mixed well. In 2004, CBS refused to run an ad by the liberal group MoveOn.org that criticized President Bush's budget policies. CBS said it had a policy against running advocacy advertising.

Networks, however, have little choice but to accept ads from candidates, provided they meet the Federal Election Commission requirements for disclosure. Next year's game _ Super Bowl XLII in Phoenix, Ariz. _ will be aired by Fox Sports.