__ The dot-coms rule this year's $125 million Super Bowl Sunday, targeting up to 400 percent of revenues for 30-second chunks of network air. What a deal, right? __
Monday, 7:45 am
I-75 South, northern Kentucky
If you're an advertising agency chasing dot-com dollars, you never know where the ebranding trail will take you. This morning, five wise guys from New York City are crammed into a minivan, barreling over and around the hills of Kentucky. They're the DeVito/Verdi agency's A-team, on their way to pitch a fresh campaign to a client, ecampus.com, in Lexington. Like all dot-coms these days, ecampus.com is trying desperately to rise above the noise, and so is debating whether to drop as much as $3 million to run a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl.
"Oh my God, what the -?! Did you see that?" screams Rob Slosberg from the backseat after spotting some particularly striking roadkill. "Oh my God, it was like total raw meat. And it was big. Like smaller than a deer, but bigger than a raccoon." To which another wise guy chimes in: "Maybe a coyote - they have those around here?"
Slosberg, the motormouthed Young Turk creative director, sits next to boss Sal DeVito, small and quiet but tough-looking, perfect for a supporting role on The Sopranos. In the middle seat is cofounder Ellis Verdi, chatty and easygoing with a slightly nasal whine. He's the face of the agency to clients - including, more and more, the dot-coms that have been calling daily, desperate for commercials. Online companies have poured more than $3 billion into advertising over the past year, according to Adweek - spurring a gold rush among ad agencies - and will represent nearly a third of all the commercials aired during this year's big game.
These new eclients typically have ample funding, a domain name, and something resembling a business plan. Maybe the site's even up and running. What they need is personality. Distinction. Attitude. "Attention at any cost," says Verdi. To get that, the dot-coms are bypassing their own medium and, for the most part, turning to small to midsize creative shops with a rep for getting attention - outfits like Goodby, Silverstein & Partners or Black Rocket on the West Coast, or the renowned New York agencies run by the likes of Donny Deutsch, Richard Kirshenbaum, and Cliff Freeman.
There are plenty of New York shops to choose from, but if it's attitude you want - what Verdi calls "the fuck-you factor" - then DeVito/Verdi is at the top of the list. A recent campaign for Time Out New York typifies the agency's style. By plastering the town with the greeting WELCOME TO NEW YORK. NOW GET OUT, DeVito/Verdi stood out in one of the most media-saturated markets on the planet. A bus-ad campaign for New York magazine declared it to be "possibly the only good thing in New York Rudy hasn't taken credit for." Predictably, Giuliani went ballistic and had the ads pulled, which prompted a lawsuit and created a blizzard of publicity for both the agency and its client. While their ads are out causing trouble, DeVito and Verdi have a good laugh at their favorite Little Italy watering hole, Mare Chiaro, whose owner, Anthony, knows them by name. With friends like this, you think the wise guys are scared of anything?
And so, last summer, when ecampus.com president Steve Stevens was looking for what he describes as "a brassy agency" to promote his Web site, which buys and sells college textbooks online, he hired DeVito/Verdi. One TV commercial created by the agency featured a college student who stands before the camera and belches the entire alphabet. Another focused on the plight of a student so strapped for cash that he fries his pet goldfish for dinner.
If the points of those spots - that ecampus.com textbooks can impart skills more marketable than burping and that the site will buy back used textbooks - are lost on you, no matter. The ads generated immediate results. Along with Cliff Freeman's outrageous ads for Cyberian Outpost - featuring gerbils fired from cannons and a wolf pack attacking a marching band - the ecampus.com spots became models for the new wave of truly tasteless dot-com ads, attacked by both the press and the ad industry itself.
But even those critics acknowledge that the wild dot-com commercials have had an impact on advertising; Rich Silverstein of Goodby, Silverstein, who has chided some dot-com advertisers for relying too much on shock value, has also compared last year's advertising bad boys to the stars of the industry's 1960s Creative Revolution. Moreover, "wild" works: DeVito/Verdi took the completely unknown ecampus.com and within two months raised brand awareness among college students to 60 percent. Zero to 60 in two months? Not bad, even on Internet time.
But that was weeks ago. Ancient history. Now it's time for round two, a campaign that will break in the weeks ahead and - who knows? - even might make it to the Super Bowl broadcast. Among the new ideas tucked into a satchel in the back of the minivan, there's got to be one that can somehow, some way, top the belching boy or the fried goldfish.
The vehicle pulls into the ecampus.com parking lot; the DeVito/Verdi team piles out and heads for the front desk. "Are y'all here for a meeting?" inquires the twangy receptionist. "Actually," one wise guy says ominously, "we're here to review your tax status."
Tuesday, 11:15 am
New York City
The headquarters of HotJobs.com looks like telemarketing hell. It's drab and dingy, with rows of people working the phones, trying to line up listings for the 3-year-old employment site. CEO Richard Johnson's office is not much better - cramped and cluttered, it has a spastic heating system that includes Johnson opening and closing the window as needed. Piled on the floor at his feet are a series of sketches mounted on slabs of cardboard. Welcome to the glamorous world of Super Bowl advertising.
Johnson's company will be one of an estimated 13 to 15 dot-com advertisers during Super Bowl XXXIV (representing 18 commercials - or as many as 30 if you include pregame). That's a huge increase from last year, when HotJobs.com and Monster.com were the only online businesses to make an appearance during the game. (E*Trade showed up in pregame spots.) Autobytel.com was the first online business to buy a Super Bowl ad, three years ago, but the company bowed out last year and has no intention of returning on January 30. "It's a pack mentality this year," says Autobytel.com CEO Mark Lorimer. "When we first did it, it was cool for a little dot-com to be on the Super Bowl. Now it's not cool at all."
Johnson doesn't see it that way. He's anxious to return - even though last year's experience was trying. HotJobs.com had hired the Boston agency Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos to create something in-your-face. The shop's best idea opened with a man sweeping out a zoo cage, backing up toward an elephant's rear end. We see the pachyderm sit down and quickly get back up - and all that's left is the broom. A voice-over asks, "Still stuck in the same old job?"
"I knew it would be a smash hit," Johnson says. But the standards group at Fox rejected it. "We do not think having a man inserted into an elephant's anus is funny," said a Fox spokesperson at the time.
Johnson was jolted. He subsequently fired Hill, Holliday, deciding that its backup concepts "were baby-boomer ideas, not Gen-X ideas." (What's a Gen-X idea? "Like, two skydivers dropping out of a plane and sharing a Mountain Dew - that's Gen-X advertising," says Johnson, who is 39.) He brought in a buddy working at McCann-Erickson's lackluster Detroit outpost, and the result was a somewhat forgettable ad featuring a security guard who dreams about glamorous jobs. By most accounts, HotJobs.com got its clock cleaned by its closest competitor, Monster.com, whose clever spot with kids fantasizing about dead-end careers proved to be a breakthrough ad moment. (Monster.com's site traffic more than quintupled after the ad ran.)
HotJobs.com did, however, milk a huge amount of publicity out of its adventure. The Fox rejection helped, as did the oddity of a tiny company blowing half its budget on one ad. HotJobs.com was mentioned in 87 percent of all pre-Super Bowl news stories about ads during the game (yes, Johnson keeps a close watch on the Nexis scoreboard), and the tale was revisited for months in the ad trades, adding up to $25 million worth of publicity, by Johnson's estimate.
As for site traffic, it skyrocketed after the ad - so much so that HotJobs.com backlogged. (Here again, Monster.com's Jeff Taylor seemed to get the last laugh: "When its site went down, more people came to us - and I'm all for that kind of coopetition.")
So when ABC Sports came calling in August (August!), warning Johnson that game ad spots were already 90 percent sold out (A bluff? "I don't think so," says Johnson), he promptly forked over $2 million for 30 seconds, with no hope of an early-bird discount. It'll all be worth it, he says, because this year he's got a "billion-dollar idea," delivered to him just days ago from his man in Detroit. It's such a hot concept, he's afraid to flip the storyboards over. Even his own marketing director, sitting beside us, dumbstruck, hasn't seen the idea yet.
"You understand what will happen if my competitors get ahold of this?" Johnson asks me. "What about when your story goes to the printer? What if somebody leaks it? You can't control that, can you?" But finally, Johnson, who never saw a press op he didn't like, can't help himself. He reaches down, grabs the boards, and starts blabbing.
Monday, 9:15 am
Lexington, Kentucky
"So you got these people stranded out in the Arctic," says Rob Slosberg as he begins the DeVito/Verdi presentation to ecampus.com president Steve Stevens. Slosberg points at Magic Marker illustrations of snowbound, parka-clad characters on the storyboard (a couple of frames are covered with paper to conceal the payoff). "And one guy says, 'OK, listen. We got no food, no water. Who knows how much longer we can last? Kowalski over there's been unconscious for days. I propose we do the only sensible thing - kill Kowalski, and begin to eat him.' And then," Slosberg peels the cover off a frame, "you pull back to reveal that these guys have been waiting in the bookstore line."
The room resounds with laughter. Slosberg reads the obligatory sell line - "The lines in bookstores are slow. That's why we created ecampus." - then delivers the ad's kicker, in which the group leader says to the others, "Let's begin with the buttocks."
Stevens loves the cannibal ad. At one point he says, "I haven't seen anybody do a let's-eat-our-friend commercial yet. So we could be the first." He isn't so sure, though, about Slosberg's dwarf-tossing idea, in which a guy is shown furiously studying physics textbooks from ecampus.com. His ulterior motive: to win a pub contest involving small bodies in flight.
"Is there a society of midgets that's going to get pissed off at this?" Stevens wonders.
"Probably," Slosberg replies.
Stevens passes on another spot involving a male student who politely offers to carry a woman's books - then runs off to sell them to ecampus.com. "A year ago you'd remember that spot - but not now," Stevens says. He does like the one involving an axe murderer, and he's partial to the one with two women in bed together. ("I wonder where Bob is?" one says to the other. "I guess he's gonna miss our little surprise." Cut to Bob, stuck in the bookstore line.)
By the time the ads have all been presented, there are three, maybe four, possibilities, with a definite favorite: "'Kill Kowalski' is a no-brainer," Stevens concludes. At one point, Slosberg says to Stevens and his two sidekicks, "It's great that you guys gravitate toward the ideas that we like, too" - as if he had no part in the gravitational pull.
Stevens, a middle-aged guy with a frat-boy's heart, is clearly having fun. In many ways, he's the prototypical dot-com client: not as young or as techy as the first-wave webpreneurs. And like many dot-commers, Stevens is a carpetbagger (he's done stints at Circuit City and in book retailing), starting over and re-creating himself on the Internet, trying to think young and connect with this new market. He seems driven to be hip, wild, cutting edge, although his age occasionally betrays him. Stevens is a fan of singer Morris Day, whose shining moment came in Prince's 1984 film Purple Rain. Stevens likes Day so much he's insisting that DeVito/Verdi include the singer in a spring-break promotion with Rolling Stone. Every time Stevens mentions Day, the wise guys grumble - they're trying for Blink 182 - but Stevens is adamant. "Morris Day is not negotiable," he says, only half joking.
When you're a dot-commer with funding, you can do what you like - and making ads is part of playing in the sandbox, maybe the coolest part. (Adman Jeff Goodby calls this "the William Randolph Hearst syndrome - as in, 'Hey, can we use this woman in the ad, because I might like to date her.'") In addition to having fun making mini-movies and watching stand-up routines in the conference room, the dot-commers relish the attention their ads bring; they count, collect, and proudly display press clippings. At one point Stevens gushes, "The 'Burp' spot got us on Extra last week - d'you guys see that?" (The wise guys didn't see it, nor do they particularly care.)
Of course, Stevens also appreciates the critical business function of these ads. At one point, he praises the "Goldfish" ad: "That commercial got an investor to sit down and write a seven-figure check." Stevens knows the new round of ads must do even more. Early in the meeting, he announces, "To meet the metrics, we have to at least double the registered users and accounts created by the first campaign." One of the wise guys raises an eyebrow and softly says, "Wow." Later Stevens says, "Keep in mind, the metrics are huge - we have to triple what we had before." To which the wise guy barks, "We started out with double, and now it's triple. If we don't leave this room before noon, is it gonna go up again?"
Wednesday, 6 pm
Orlando, Florida
Mike Budowski and his wife are hosting a Super Bowl party - two months before the game. The purpose is to announce that the Budowskis are about to give birth to a Super Bowl commercial. "Eleven months ago," Budowski says to a gathering at Orlando's Citrus Club, "my partner and I were discussing business opportunities via the Internet and concluded that our current companies would not make the transition to the Internet" - yes, Budowski is another carpetbagger, from the world of pest control - "but my wife, Susan, had her own wedding business."
Susan Budowski had been making less than $30,000 annually working from home as a wedding consultant before the Budowskis started offering wedding invitations online this year. Their site, OurBeginning.com, was on track to bring in $1 million in revenues for 1999 - with close to 10,000 visitors a day.
So now the Budowskis are spending $4 million on five spots - four will run during pregame and another during the third quarter - and optimistically projecting revenues of $15 million this year. Still at the microphone, Mike Budowski addresses the big issue: "Why the Super Bowl? The Super Bowl represents the largest audience of the year, an audience that actually looks forward to the commercials." He sounds not unlike a network-TV sales rep. "What better way to shorten our branding curve?"
In the crowd, several OurBeginning.com investors remain quiet. After Budowski first thought of hitching the couple's wagon to the Super Bowl - "the idea just came to us," he explains - he told his backers he'd need interim financing, prior to raising venture capital, to pay for the ad. The investors "were ecstatic about it when I told them this," Budowski tells me privately.
How crazy is it that Budowski is spending four times his company's annual revenue in one day? Venture capitalist George Zachary, a general partner at Mohr, Davidow, says a herd mentality has seized both the ad-struck entrepreneurs and the money people. "Many of those investors are going to feel like idiots when these huge marketing campaigns prove ineffective," he says. But for every George Zachary, there's a Dan Nova. A VC at Highland Capital Partners, Nova says the standard measures are no longer standard. "We're in the middle of a revolution," he adds, "and logic doesn't always apply."
At the party, Budowski solicits input from his guests. There are three upside-down football helmets in the room, each tagged with a sign: HYSTERICALLY FUNNY, WARM AND FUZZY, and OVER-THE-EDGE. Voters toss chips into the helmet whose label best represents their favorite type of commercial. It's not your typical research study, but Budowski is an outsider to the ad process - he doesn't even have an ad agency. Instead, he went to Disney, which has a creative group that, while not exactly known for doing commercials, is helping him out.
Budowski is not the only one tossing all his chips into OVER-THE-EDGE. Joining him as a newcomer to the Super Bowl ad roster is Steve Fu, whose site, Angeltips.com (which links private investors with entrepreneurs seeking funding), wasn't even up when he plunked down investors' money for his Super Bowl ad. "For me personally," says Fu, "it's exciting to start a company and six months later be on the Super Bowl."
Then there's Mike ("people call me Zappy") Zapolin, who didn't raise his first round of funding for his site, Computer.com, until November - but still managed to squeeze onto the game broadcast: Two dot-com Super Bowl advertisers dropped out because they couldn't produce the up-front cash ABC required (networks generally extend credit to advertisers). Zappy took the $5 million he'd just raised and bet more than half on a spot. "We snuck in the back door," he says proudly. And what did the investors say? "They loved it! They said, 'Go for it - go make us a lot of money.'"
Wednesday, 3:15 pm
ABC headquarters, New York City
In the dot-com ad rush, about the only thing better than being an irreverent ad agency is being a media outlet - in particular, a broadcast network that happens to be running the Super Bowl. ABC is charging 25 to 50 percent more than Fox charged last year, commanding about $2 million for a 30-second spot, though premium spots have reportedly gone for as high as $3 million. That's five times what it costs to run a commercial on ER and more than 100 times the cost of a spot on UPN's Shasta McNasty.
Maybe it's to protect the advertisers' element of surprise, or perhaps it's simply because people don't like to brag when they're in the midst of pillaging, but ABC Sports has kept mum about the dot-com phenomenon. ABC spokesperson Mark Mandel is curiously reticent about the most publicized event known to humankind:
Can you answer a few questions about the Super Bowl?
You can ask, but I probably won't be able to help you with much.
The game is supposedly running about one-third dot-com ads. Does that sound about right?
Mmm-hmm.
During last year's World Series, some dot-com advertisers dropped out at the last minute, creating opportunities for latecomers. Is it possible that Super Bowl dot-com dropouts could create a Priceline situation - where someone who waits until the last minute can get an ad for 99 bucks?
Right now those spots are in high demand, and we're getting a pretty good price for them. I'm not going to tell you what that is.
If any dot-coms do drop out, you've already got their money up front, right?
That I can't answer.
You didn't fall for that "We'll give you stock options" thing, did you?
Nah.
Last year Fox killed a Super Bowl dot-com ad in which a man found himself up an elephant's butt. With the dot-com ads getting even wilder this year, do you anticipate a tough screening process?
Don't know about that. Obviously people want to make an impact on the Super Bowl, and they try to be as creative as possible. I'm unaware of any real concerns that these ads will not be appropriate.
But the dot-coms have been shooting gerbils from cannons. Suppose someone aims a bazooka at a bunny - will ABC step in and stop it?
We have our broadcast standards. Whatever it is, people will look them over, and I'm sure only what is appropriate will be on.
Given the number of dot-com sponsors, and considering that college-bowl games are often named after the biggest sponsor, has there been any thought of changing the name of the Super Bowl to the eBowl?
You better call the NFL on that one.
Monday, 4 pm
San Francisco
As countless pundits have observed, it is very ironic that new media loves old media so much. But here's something even more amusing: Rich Silverstein, the new guru of branding in Silicon Valley, doesn't even use email. "I do not send any, nor do I receive any," the co-creative director of Goodby, Silverstein announces proudly while sitting at a scarred drafting table with an old T square he still uses to design layouts by hand. This is the same fellow who, on his way to pitch IBM years ago, turned to Jeff Goodby in an elevator and said, "I hope I don't end up sitting next to some computer geek." From behind them, an IBM executive said, "You should be careful what you say in elevators." The agency didn't win that account.
But these days, Goodby, Silverstein is one of the most sought-after agencies among the dot-coms, partly thanks to its work for E*Trade. That campaign has helped triple E*Trade's awareness and sales, and - perhaps more important - "it has given us a personality," says E*Trade marketing VP Mike Sievert. "It's not enough to have people just know your brand. They have to feel something about it."
E*Trade started out just pounding on the price message, like lots of dot-coms. But when Silverstein took over the account, he set about creating a brand identity - everything from visuals (the purple-and-green color scheme) to tone (brash but also smart).
The ads went after financial advisers by urging consumers to "Fire your broker" ("an easy target - the brokers were the low-hanging fruit," says Silverstein). Next, the campaign encouraged caution; one ad showed an online trader winning big, quitting his job, then watching his stocks plummet. "That was honest, and it gave us credibility," Silverstein says.
Gradually, ads showed investors calling their own shots - like the guy who quickly yanks his investment from a Hollywood studio that has produced a big-budget turkey of a movie. "Buffett says you invest in what you like, and that's the message there," says Silverstein. All the ads incorporate enough sly humor to keep the empowerment statement from seeming phony. And all of them tell stories. The ads "tie everything together," says Silverstein. "That's what a good ad campaign does."
Silverstein and Goodby both feel that most dot-com advertising right now is tying a slip knot. In the first wave of ads over the past year, "there was a cynicism among the agency people that you could just do anything that was attention-getting," says Goodby. "They knew these clients would buy it, because there were no experienced marketing people at the dot-coms - just a bunch of entrepreneurs and VCs. I think a lot of agencies adopted a 'what the heck, let's take their money' attitude." But that must change - and soon, Goodby adds, because "the advertising is already lagging behind the needs of the dot-coms" by failing to differentiate them.
Goodby says he's looking forward to the Super Bowl's real action. (E*Trade, as title sponsor of the halftime show, is a major player.) "I think it will be interesting to watch all the wild things the dot-coms are probably going to try," he adds. "I don't know if any of it will work as advertising, but it should be entertaining. It'll be like the demolition derby - we won't know who any of the drivers are, but it'll be fun watching them crash into each other."
Tuesday, 12:15 pm
New York City
Here is the secret Richard Johnson was withholding, the "billion-dollar idea" HotJobs.com will feature on the Super Bowl. "We're going to own the hand," he says.
Come again?
"You know how Sun's ads talk about being 'the dot in dot-com?' HotJobs is going to claim ownership to the hand."
It gradually becomes clear that Johnson is talking about the pointing-finger icon on a Web browser. He and his agency have decided to create a mascot character, a giant, puffy, finger-pointing hand. In a series of commercials, the puffy-hand character will show up in all sorts of kooky situations - job interviews, swanky restaurants, ball games. It will talk, and it will have an attitude ("kind of like Spike Lee, but not Spike Lee," Johnson says). Typical scenario: The puffy hand is sitting across the desk from a potential employer who is offering a job, but the salary is low. So the hand snarls: "Sixty-five thousand? Talk to the hand!"
"It's built around us being the hottest hand in the Internet," Johnson explains. "And the great thing is, this is not just a commercial - it's a whole idea we can build on." In other words, HotJobs.com will create and run teasers, introductory ads, follow-up ads. "We originally figured we'd just do a 30-second ad," Johnson says. "But with this approach, we'll need to do a lot more." In fact, he figures he's going to double his ad expenditures, to the tune of $40 million. I'm wondering if his buddy in Detroit is opening a bottle of champagne right about now.
Johnson's new marketing director, Dean Harris, is hearing the idea for the first time, and it's tough to get a read on him. He just started a few days ago; how honest can he really be? Staring down at the storyboards, I'm trying to figure it all out. Who is the hand? Is it the customer? Or HotJobs.com? Is this one of those ideas that's so simple you must be a new media visionary to get it?
Johnson, meanwhile, is gushing: "If we can get a pop-icon culture around this, we'll own the hand! And if we can do that, we'll be as big as eBay."
Monday, 1:15 pm
I-75 North, northern Kentucky
Presentation concluded, the wise guys are back in the minivan, hauling ass to catch a plane. They're giving Slosberg a hard time for that unctuous remark to the client about "gravitating to the same ideas" ("No, I meant it! They do pick the best stuff," Slosberg protests), and one wise guy explains the difference between an ass-kisser and a brownnoser: "about half an inch."
Verdi is still reflecting on the meeting. "It went well, I think," he says. Sure, the ads were a little wild, but they were smart. "It's not like Outpost's gerbil ad, where you don't even know what the product is," he says. "I think these ads do a good job of advancing the argument for ecampus."
Besides, there's nothing wrong with dot-com ads being a little wacky, Verdi insists. "You have to realize advertising is usually a balance between selling and getting attention," he says. "And at this stage for the dot-coms, getting attention is higher on the list. Once they establish themselves, the balance will shift back to selling and differentiation. But right now, most of these guys just have to shout, 'Hello! Here I am!'"
Will this dot-com ad rush that Verdi is riding end anytime soon? "Yeah, I think we'll see the bubble burst," he says. "Maybe a year or two. We can't stay in this unaccountable world of throwing marketing money out there to see if it sticks." All dot-coms "are under tremendous pressure. Some of the investors are looking for 300 percent increases in three months, and the only tool the dot-coms have to accomplish that is advertising. Listen, I think advertising works - but it doesn't work that well."
Verdi may be right about this, but for now, the dot-com ad forecasts remain bullish. While there will be a drop-off after Super Bowl mania has subsided and everyone recovers from the holiday ad blitz, Advertising Age predicts that the dot-coms will spend $7 billion this year - twice 1999's outlay. (The magazine cautions, though, that the possibility of a huge shakeout during the year could alter those projections.) And even boosters of interactive advertising, such as DoubleClick's Wenda Harris Millard, acknowledge that the TV commercial will remain the medium of choice for now. "I don't think the dot-coms' big spending on TV is a one-year blip," she says.
Meanwhile, the dot-coms continue to inject adrenaline into the ad biz. "You get the feeling anything is possible," Verdi says.
Well, not quite anything: With the Super Bowl too crowded and costly, ecampus.com subsequently decides it will not bring cannibals to the big party after all - though the campaign will be seen just about everywhere else in January and February.
"What I love about these guys is that you're not dealing with the kind of client who is burdened with 20 years of saying 'We can't do this' or 'We'll really have to think about that,'" Verdi adds. "The dot-coms are cowboys, chasing that golden apple." And as long as they are, the wise guys in the minivan will be right behind them, pedal to the metal.