DETROIT - Football teams aren't the only ones trying to score at Super Bowl XL - this year the stakes are particularly high for advertisers.
At a time when consumers increasingly zap past TV commercials, the Super Bowl may be the only television show of the year where we not only tolerate, but also actually look forward to, the ads.
Of course, viewers expect those ads to be highly entertaining. We want to be cracked up or choked up and have something to yak merrily about on Monday morning.
"The challenge for the advertisers is the expectations are so high," said Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. This year, he said, "we're going to see more humor and more unexpected twists."
Expectations are one reason why advertisers often debut their most creative ads during the game. The fact that it's the biggest television audience of the year has something to do with it, too. But it's also a night we want to laugh and yes, even shed a tear or two.
So be prepared for everything from a comical Emerald Nuts ad with a druid conducting business under a stairway and a star-studded Cadillac commercial with the glitz of a Paris fashion show to a Dove heart-string tugger with young girls talking about self-esteem.
This year's Super Bowl ads will shock, inspire, awe and amaze - or at least that's what their creators hope they'll do.
Super Bowl advertising is a big deal. After all, more than 133 million Americans watched the game last year. Only about 20 million American households typically tune in to a Sunday night episode of "Desperate Housewives."
As a result, advertising to that XL crowd can carry an XL price tag: an estimated $2.5 million for 30 seconds this year.
What marketers do with these precious time slots are as important as the exposure itself. After all, making a ho-hum ad that no one talks about the next day can be almost as bad as not advertising at all. Conversely, creating a spot like Coke's "Mean Joe Green" in 1980 or Master Lock's "Marksman" in 1974 can have people talking years later.
Super Bowl ads can make or break a company's image in the minds of consumers, so this year advertisers are pulling out a number of tricks. Unlike the days before the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" debacle, advertisers for the most part will keep commercials clean and family-friendly. Completely gone are ads for erectile-dysfunction drugs. And some top Super Bowl advertisers of past years, such as McDonald's and Visa, won't have an ad presence as they've opted to advertise during the Winter Olympics, which starts five days after the big game.
Perennial Super Bowl advertisers known for their blockbuster ads - Anheuser Busch and Pepsi - will be back this year:
In one of Anheuser Busch's spots, two slacker guys try to escape from a grizzly bear and Bud Light saves the day; Cedric the Entertainer walks down the aisle to get a pack of Bud Light in another. The company is expected to bring back its popular Clydesdales, too.
Pepsi, meanwhile, will use Sean "Diddy" Combs and Jackie Chan to hawk Diet Pepsi by showing how the drink can make them more successful at their craft. And Pepsi is expected to have a commercial for Sierra Mist.
Several advertisers that scored big with their first Super Bowl ads last year are back - or almost back:
Careerbuilder.com, which was praised for ads that used chimps to spoof the daily grind in corporate America, will bring them back this year.
After seeing a 56 percent increase in sales following its first Super Bowl spot last year, Emerald Nuts will be back with a 30-second spot during the fourth quarter featuring a druid and machete enthusiasts doing unusual things to play off the letters in the brand's name.
GoDaddy.com stirred controversy with provocative ads last year featuring a big-busted model struggling to keep her spaghetti straps up during some sort of committee hearings. Reportedly the company is trying to get network clearance for another racy ad in which the scantily clad woman is washing windows this time.
Some advertisers will attempt to elicit strong emotional connections:
A Dove ad will feature the voices of young girls talking about self-esteem as part of its "Campaign for Real Beauty." The ad campaign gained attention by using normal-sized women in their underwear in ads.
In a 30-second Toyota spot, a Hispanic father drives his young son in the 2007 hybrid Camry and tells him how the car switches between gas and electric power. The son compares that to the way his father switches between English and Spanish.
