‘Who will spend more’ tournament final

9% of Americans who don’t have TV-sets decide to buy them just for the sake of that very day, then to sell or give them to others. 15,000 tons of chips, as well as 415 million chicken wings are eaten and washed down with over 310million bottles of beer that are sold on this day. Personally I joined the parade of thousands and millions in 2015, in Arizona, that hosted the American National Football League final, commonly referred to as the Super Bowl.

In the evenings, I saw the aircrafts literally queue up in Arizona sky to make a landing. Whereas in the morning, I read the reports about who arrived by charter flights in Phoenix, the capital of the U.S. State of Arizona: Elton John, Kim Kardashian. Tickets for their neighboring seats were sold underhand at US$20,000-50,000. Whereas an ordinary ticket normally cost US$ 4,400, but that was a ‘starting’ price.

The Super Bowl unveils the whole splendor of America, with not a slightest trace of poverty. On the eve of the match, when I went out into the street, I got lost in my ‘native’ Phoenix: streets were turned into shopping and entertainment centers; buildings were covered with ad posters; demonstrations of atheists, agnostics, abortion proponents and, certainly, their opponents, all-all-all were marching along the sidewalks and crossings.

When you see it with your own eyes, you understand the statistics: 19% of people didn’t attend the funeral of their next of kin, whereas 15% missed the birth of their own child for the sake of attending the match of the year final – the Super Bowl.

This, however, is nothing compared with the global business preparations. On February 5 this year, in Texas capital, Austin, the advertisers set a new record of a price for 30-second commercial for the Super Bowl halftime demonstration. All clips are made specially for this day, and, as a rule, are never shown again.

A 30-second commercial amounted to approximately US$5million this year-The Forbes reported. According to the same source, US$7million were spent on preparation of the video clip. In other words, US$12million were on air and vanished within half a minute. They really vanished, because relying on the Forbes, such advertising has little effect.

US$218,5million have been spent on advertising of the Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser beer during the Super Bowl over the past 7 years.

Many companies with immigrant stories have ‘responded’ to U.S. President Donald Trump this year. A commercial by that same Anheuser-Busch has become a classical ‘ad slap’ to all those, who campaign against immigrants.

Anheuser-Busch commercial

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Audi ‘slapped in the face’ those, who don’t oppose lower wages for women’s labor. A clip ‘What do I tell my daughter?’ has become an appeal to the whole world…to think about gender equality together with Audi.

Audi commercial  

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Airbnb, a renowned house rental company, has gone even farther, claiming that business needs diversity. Its commercial ‘We accept’ has become a response to President Trump’s ban on immigrants’ entry into the USA.

Airbnb commercial

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Thus, the Super Bowl turned out to be the best way to get one’s point through to the audience in half a minute. There is simply no other opportunity to address 117million US citizens at once. Another thing is that CBS, the major company broadcasting those brief messages, charges millions for that.

The Harvard Business Review (HBR) has openly warned that buying air time for such substantial sums is equal to lighting money on fire. The company compares those, who order such commercials with the gang members who get their faces tattooed to prove that they are in it for a long haul.

The U.S. human rights activists name thousands of spheres where those funds could have been spent, criticizing the consumer approach, but all that is done only after the match. During the game all guns are silent, commercials are aired during the breaks and there is incomparable Lady Gaga performing amidst 40 drones lighting up her flight show.

Honestly, I don’t know, who played in the final this time, who lost and what was the score. However, compared with the millions of dollars spent, the complex rules of American football and Lady Gaga’s flight, the game score seems just a trifle thing…