Advertisers competed to keep Super Bowl XXXV viewers’ attention

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Advertisers who had spent record sums for commercials got little help from the football field in keeping Super Bowl viewers watching.

The Baltimore Ravens crushed the New York Giants 34-7 on Sunday in what many had expected would be a low-scoring match-up unresolved until the last minutes. But it was all but over before the third quarter ended.

That left it to the advertisers to use the telecast’s reputation as an advertising showcase to keep viewers watching.

More than 30 companies bought the 30 minutes of network commercial time in the CBS telecast, paying what insiders said was a record average price of $2.3 million for each half-minute ad. That was $100,000 more than ABC claimed a year ago when 17 dot-com companies gobbled up 40 percent of the available ad time.

Only three dot-coms came back this year. One of them, the online broker E-Trade Group, ran an ad that mourned the passing of some online businesses.

In the commercial, a chimp riding a horse as if through a western ghost town passed vacant buildings that once housed the mythical TieClasp.com and Pimentoloaf.com and an abandoned sports car with the license plate “Dot Comer.” A sock puppet, similar to the mascot of failed Pets.com, dropped in the dirt.

“Invest wisely,” the ad said as a close-up showed a tear falling down the chimp’s cheek.

Rivals in beverages, credit cards, wireless phone service and job listings tried to keep viewers watching despite the lopsided score.

There were even competing advertisers with anti-smoking messages — Marlboro maker Philip Morris and smoking foe The American Legacy Foundation.

Anheuser-Busch was the single biggest advertiser on the program with four minutes of ads. Two of them played off the popular “Whassup” ads for Budweiser that have run for more than a year. In one, Brett, Brad and Chad offered a limp, preppy imitation by asking “What are you doing≠” on the phone as they watched a market recap on TV and sipped imported beer. In another ad, an alien who just got back from Earth delivers the “Whassup” line perfectly to his space pals.

A Bud Light ad showed a man trying to impress a woman, but showering her in suds when he took the cap off a shaken bottle. The boy group ‘N Sync appeared in an ad thanking a father for talking to his kids about drinking.

Pepsi-Cola tweaked its “Joy of Cola” theme to make it “Joy of Pepsi.” In one of its ads, one-time GOP presidential contender Bob Dole spoofs his Viagra pitches to attest that the “little blue friend” that he turns to for his vitality is a can of Pepsi. In another, a Pepsi makes a man dream of joining the girls appearing in a subway car poster at their tropical paradise. His dream ends when he discovers the other subway riders are there, too.

Diet Dr Pepper, meanwhile, ran an ad spoofing the musical “Riverdance.”

In the credit card wars, Visa showed a woman who used her card for a vacuum cleaner that she used to get rid of the slovenly guy at her house. A man in another Visa ad watched the rabbits multiply while he and his daughter awaited approval for his check at the pet store.

MasterCard ran a pair of new ads in its “Priceless” campaign, including one that touted a giveaway of a vacation for 10 old friends.

Mobile phone companies also competed for attention.

Verizon Wireless showed a couple using their phones to communicate at a noisy rock concert. Cingular Wireless ran three ads including one that showed a disabled painter who draws with a brush attached to his head to show the company’s commitment to assisting self-expression. In another, a choreographer taught “Touchdown Dance Class” to large men evidently trying to perfect their end-zone celebrating.

Two online job sites, Monster.com and Hotjobs.com, were the other two dot-coms back from last year. Monster showed a man getting his business cards and savoring the sight of his name above the title “software engineer.” Hotjobs showed a silver gravity ball breaking away from the pack it usually hung with, rolling out the door and across the street to join a game of marbles. It used the song “Go Where You Wanna Go” as a musical backdrop.

Volkswagen advertised several new models, including its GTI which wound up in a tree when the driver let the clutch out too quickly. Accenture, the former Andersen Consulting, ran several ads showing it is in tune with the latest developments in medical and industrial technology. And FedEx had an ad that showed what can go wrong when a recliner maker uses the improper spring for a chair.

In the anti-smoking arena, Philip Morris’ ad showed happy, active teens who said they knew enough not to smoke, part of its “Think. Don’t Smoke” campaign.

The Legacy group, which is financed by the tobacco industry’s $206 billion settlement with the states over health costs, ran two ads late in the fourth quarter — one narrated by a man talking with an electronic larynx and disputing whether the industry has changed, the other featuring a man whose wife died at 46 due to smoking. “Cigarettes don’t care. We do,” the ad said.