The Super Bowl XLI Ad Game

The big event this weekend is the best night in television: the Super Bowl commercials. (The rumor is that some people watch the football game that happens during the commercials, but most smart people know that's the time to go get more burgers, brats, and chips.) This year companies are spending $2.6 million for a 30-second ad, and none of them are guaranteed a touchdown in reaching their audience. Here's some interesting information:

• This year marks the first time in 10 years that Coca-Cola has purchased ads at the bowl game. Expect Coke and Pepsi to go head to head.
• As usual, Anheuser Busch is buying 10 ad spots for Budweiser and Bud Light.
• Apple has purchased a spot and no one really knows what they'll be promoting. One likely candidate could be that, due to the settled lawsuit with Apple Corps., The Beatles are soon going to be on iTunes. But as Leo Laporte said a couple weeks ago on GeekBrief.tv, they have to announce something bigger than "you can buy The Beatles online now." Leo thinks it may be a Beatles themed iPod with all their music on it or something. I hope it's actually an iPod that looks like an iPhone and has an 80GB hard drive.
• In other tech news, of course GoDaddy.com is going to have a rather risque advertisement. The fun twist this year? Many of the stars of podcasts that GoDaddy sponsors will be in the commercial spot.
• There are two tech-related newcomers to the big ad game. The first, Garmin, is one of the bigger sellers of GPS electronics.
• The second newcomer, SalesGenie.com, better get their stuff together. Although they may have an ad, their homepage looks like crap in FireFox. Oh wait, nevermind. Their product is only for business people that use Microsoft products exclusively anyways.

Well, that's my wrap-up for now. Thanks to this great news article on Newswire and the always-informative Superbowl-Ads.com for all the latest information on the only night of TV worth watching. An interesting note from the Newswire article:

Why so expensive? One of the main reasons companies pay as much as $2.6 million for 30 seconds is that the Super Bowl is the only true mass media outlet available today. If you want to reach a very large audience of males and females, young and old, the Super Bowl is the only game in town.