Watch CBS News

Smaller Brands Going For Broke For This Year's Super Bowl Ads

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – The most iconic Super Bowl ads in recent years have left an indelible mark on our brains. But until now, they've never cost so much. A single 30-second spot runs $4.5 million, CBS2's Weijia Jiang reported.

And it's not just Pepsi and Budweiser that are shelling out big money for spots. This year, unknown companies are betting the farm trying to get their brand name out there.

Wix.com, which builds websites, Mophie, extending phone batteries and Loctite, a 52-year-old glue company from Westlake, Ohio, are spending their entire annual budget on one Super Bowl commercial.

"Our goal is to make Loctite famous," Loctite Brand Director Pierre Tannoux said. "We are investing more in this spot that we did for the total of last year."

The notion would make most executives lightheaded, but an ad firm called Fallon convinced them it would make Loctite a household name. Chris Lawrence is Fallon's ad director and the man behind the Super Bowl ads for Cadillac and Coke.

"It's a major investment, a one-time shot. However, as we looked at that, we said look at what this company has done for years and years and years of investing money and really not getting a return. So why not put yourself into the biggest stage with the best work you've ever had? And it's not the risk of doing it, it's the risk of not doing it," he said.

"When you look at E*Trade or GoDaddy, those were relatively unheard of companies when they first started advertising on Super Bowl and now they're giants and everybody knows them," Natalie Zmuda said, an editor with AdAge.

But it hasn't worked for everyone. Last year, Radioshack's Super Bowl commercial sent a message that the struggling electronics company was stuck in the 90s.

"It's a really tricky balance to get people talking in the right way and I'm sure that this is one of the things keeping the marketing people up at night at Loctite," Zmuda said.

The real success of an ad has a lot to do with how much it's shared on social media.

The most-shared ad in history was the Volkswagen "Darth Vader" ad; this year, Volkswagen will not be advertising in the Super Bowl.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.