There’s a “proliferation of long-form creative content’’ during commercial breaks at this year’s Super Bowl, noted Seth Winter, senior vice president of sales and marketing at NBC Sports Group, in an e-mail.
Though Winter wouldn’t specify how many longer commercials would air during this year’s game, there were 10 long-form network commercials during last year’s Super Bowl. Two that were considered to be breakout successes were the 60-second Volkswagen Passat ad that featured a boy in a Darth Vader costume trying to wield the Force, and Chrysler LLC’s two-minute ode to Detroit with rapper Eminem.
Audi of America Inc. plans to return to the game with a 60-second ad in the first quarter - a premium spot, since the ads get cheaper as the game goes on - promoting the new LED headlights on the 2013 Audi S7 sedan. Inspired by the “Twilight’’ movie series, the ad features a throng of young vampires bantering at a campfire. Another guest pulls up in his Audi sedan and beams his headlights on the festivities. Let’s just say the party quickly dies out.
Audi chief marketing officer Scott Keogh said the company needed a full minute to tell that story. “The extra time not only gives consumers room for discussion and helps spark conversation, but it also allows us to deliver the message,’’ he wrote in a e-mail.
Commercials in general have been getting shorter since the 1950s and 1960s, when 60 seconds was the norm. A 2009 Super Bowl ad for Miller Beer pushed the short form to its limit, running for only a single second. Television ads today tend to run for 30 seconds each. Lengthier ads serve the Internet age, analysts said, because it’s possible to draw viewers to the Web for a deeper pitch. “Advertisers have more time to . . . direct people online to tell the story,’’ said Andrew Graff, president of The Ad Club of Boston.
