It’s official, and not a moment too soon: NBC has sold every single spot in the Super Bowl, although some pre-game spots are still up for grabs, according to Seth Winter, evp of ad sales for NBCUniversal’s news and sports groups. The timing isn’t typical, by the way—Fox sold out the game in December last year.
But NBC was driving a hard bargain: The network asked for $4.5 million a pop this year, and it was also dealing with a marketplace where several key players, notably automakers, are simply sitting this one out. Rumor has it, too, that NBC asked for an additional investment from advertisers coming into the Super Bowl for the first time—a placement of additional millions with the company’s large suite of cable networks.
At any rate, the network is publicly very happy with the outcome. “We came through with flying colors,” Winter said to reporters by conference call today, though he admitted that it “hadn’t been the easiest exercise” in his career.
And ultimately, the network is using some of the airtime to play up its own shows across that same portfolio, so there are multiple ways to win here. One of the promo spots in the Big Game is going to fashion-and-fame network E! for its new show The Royals.
Written by: Sam Thielman Source: www.AdWeek.com
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________