With Super Bowl Ads being as popular as they are, it’s not a wonder that (according to Bloomberg.com) Fox is charging as much as $3 million for thirty seconds of advertising space during the big game. Whether it was to save money or just an attempt at a clever gimmick (or both), Weatherproof Garment Company had plans to purchase just two seconds of Super Bowl ad space.
The two-second commercial would’ve made advertising history as the shortest TV commercial ever. Weatherproof President Freddie Stollmack and CEO Eliot Peyser put the ad together themselves in an effort to promote Weatherproof’s new fall/winter collection. The reason for the super-short commercial was stated in a press release sent to us yesterday: “Weatherproof is levelling the playing field for companies unwilling to buy a full-length 30 second ad, during what is said to be the most expensive air-time on the global television calendar.” Peyser went on to explain, “We would have preferred to buy a one second time slot, but it takes exactly two seconds to say the word ‘Weatherproof®’.”
A two second commercial is kind of pointless and broadcast during any other televised event, probably wouldn’t be all that effective in terms of grabbing people’s attention but that rule doesn’t really apply to the Super Bowl. Given the fact that many of us who don’t care about football only bother to watch the event because of the commercials and halftime show, it’s likely that people would’ve actually noticed the brief ad when it aired. It doesn’t matter though because the commercial’s not going to happen. A retraction to the original press release was issued shortly after stating that “due to timing constraints” they weren’t able to get the ad space. So perhaps Fox wasn’t willing to part with just two seconds of airtime or they simply ran out of space but Weatherproof wont be breaking any records this year.
