Sports Illustrated has a fabulous short take this week on CPM rates and Super Bowl ads. In short: on a per-viewer basis, a $3 million Super Bowl spot gets an advertiser more bang for the buck–by a good 35 percent–than a $435,000 slot on a typical Sunday Night Football broadcast. The sheer viewer numbers for the big game actually make broad-based marketing a relative bargain.
While it’s hard to swallow the thought of six-million-dollar-a-minute advertisements in the penny-pinching 2008 holiday season, an advertiser like, say, Doritos, which can gain a position of strength in a recession, is well suited to a Super Bowl ad.