Super Bowl Ads Go for Record $2.3m

Advertisers are paying a record $2.25m (£1.2m) for a 30-second slot during the Super Bowl, the finale to the American football season, in another sign of recovery in the US advertising market.

The Super Bowl, the biggest event in the US sporting year, is also the most significant benchmark in the advertising calendar, with news of the commercial break content almost as eagerly anticipated as the result itself.

With two weeks to go before the big game on February 1, broadcaster CBS has been able to give the advertising industry some much-needed encouragement, with the news that slots are almost sold out at prices up 10% on last year.

The $2.25m price tag brings the cost of advertising back to the levels reached at the peak of the dotcom boom, when internet companies fought to join global brands such as Pepsi and Budweiser by advertising in the Super Bowl breaks.

The 2000 Super Bowl generated $130m in advertising revenues, at an average of $2.2m for each 30-second slot.

According to US trade magazine Advertising Age, eight slots remain to be sold despite the high price, proving that advertisers are prepared to pay large sums for the huge audiences the Super Bowl attracts.

Last year nearly 90 million viewers watched the game in the US alone and it was the most viewed sporting event internationally, beating the rugby World Cup final.

Advertisers already signed up include Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo and Philip Morris.

Several of the Hollywood studios have pre-booked slots to promote forthcoming movies and British drug group GlaxoSmithKline is using the event to launch Levitra, a rival to anti-impotence drug Viagra.

Ever since Apple used the 1984 Super Bowl to launch its eponymous computer with an award-winning commercial shot by film director Ridley Scott, advertisers have queued up for the big event.