Ad Track: Pepsi hopes Earnhardt drives laps around A-B
NEW YORK -- NASCAR superstar Dale Earnhardt Jr. will go bumper-to-bumper with his former backer before the Feb. 17 Daytona 500 if he makes the starting grid in a Feb. 3 Super Bowl ad for the company sponsoring his new ride.
Earnhardt, a five-time Most Popular Driver Award winner whose 17 major victories include the 2004 Daytona 500, recently shot two ads for Pepsi's pep Amp energy drink, sponsor of his race car this year.
Pepsi is the No. 2 Super Bowl ad spender this year behind Anheuser-Busch bud, which was Earnhardt's sponsor last season. He moved to Pepsi and the Hendrick Motorsports racing team after a highly publicized split with his family's team and says he's eager to help Pepsi overtake marketing rival A-B as a Super Bowl ad favorite.
"There's only a few Super Bowl spots and it's limited on what celebrities get chosen; after a while, you start to understand the competition between the brands," Earnhardt said by phone from a commercial shoot in Los Angeles, where he said he and a crew of 30 took over a "nice woman's café."
"You start to see how big a deal it is not to bomb," he said. "It's important to be at the top of the list. When they go out and spend all this dang money, they don't want to bomb out."
Pepsi shot two ads with the NASCAR star and they're in a pool of ads in testing to see which will get a piece of its two minutes of in-game ad time. With that time valued at about $10 million and more than 90 million people expected to be watching, Pepsi is testing to see if they are game-ready. Either way, the Earnhardt ads will air in the telecast of the Daytona 500.
But Pepsi and Earnhardt hope his ads will help them to a Super Bowl victory lap in USA TODAY's 20th annual Ad Meter real-time rating of the ads on game day.
Pepsi marketers think Earnhardt's appeal can help the Amp ads top soft-drink rival Coca-Cola and end Anheuser-Busch's Super Bowl Ad Meter winning streak. A-B has taken the checkered flag for the most-liked ad for nine games. Before Anheuser-Busch began its Ad Meter run, Pepsi reigned as king of Big Game ads for six consecutive Super Sundays.
With the Earnhardt ads, Pepsi's formula has mixed in some of the traditional ingredients of crowd-pleasing Super Bowl ads: celebrity star power and animal antics. In one of the ads, Amp gives Earnhardt the energy to take on a camel (real), in the other a gorilla (human powered). The beasts are meant to represent the forces that drivers endure on a race track at 200 mph.
The bottom line, of course, for Amp marketers is not winning prizes, but raising awareness and sales for the now-No. 5 energy drink brand.
"Energy is a huge growth category," says Cie Nicholson, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Pepsi North America. "We're excited about Dale Jr. He's one of the most popular athletes on the planet. There's so much focus on Junior right now. We think it's going to be a great year to take advantage of the excitement around Dale. Jr. and NASCAR in general."
To that end, Earnhardt's ads are just the start of the year-long marketing calendar for his new sponsor. He'll be in print and radio ads and on Amp cans this summer.
NEW & NOTABLE
Pimp my flush.
One lucky queen will get a new throne this spring — a bathroom throne that is. To woo the gender that most frequently makes plumbing service calls, Roto-Rooter is launching a "Pimped Out Powder Room" sweepstakes. From Jan. 22 to April 1, visitors to rotorooter.com can register for a chance to win a remodeled bathroom worth $5,000 that comes with a new toilet, pedicure footbath, heated towel rack, flat-screen TV and DVD player. The winner will be crowned on April 25, National Plumber's Day.
Sweet talk.
Wonder what the forecast is for your love life on Valentine's Day? The company that makes Sweethearts treats makes some predictions with new sayings on the heart-shaped candy: Sun Shine, In a Fog, Chill Out and Heat Wave.
The expressions highlight the "unpredictability of day-to-day change of weather and people's love lives," explains Lory Zimbalatti, marketing manager at New England Confectionery.
Naked ambition.
What happens when one publicity stunt piggybacks another? In Manhattan, they both win. Earlier this month, Time Square's infamous Naked Cowboy (Robert Burck), who strums guitar tunes in his briefs for baffled tourists, suddenly found himself with a warm coat on his bare shoulders.
The coat landed courtesy of Freddie Stollmack, founder of Weatherproof Garment, who was aiming for free PR for his $185 Ultra Tech men's jacket. Stollmack declines to say who he'll put under wraps next. How about Donald Trump's hair?
Big Game hunting.
Looking for bang for your Super Bowl ad buck? Feature an unlikely celebrity in a creative ad, then reveal the punch line before the game, advises Jim Nail, chief strategy and marketing officer at buzz-tracking company Cymfony.
That strategy paid off last year for Nationwide Mutual Insurance, which featured Britney Spears' ex, Kevin Federline, in its ad. The insurer let the world know K-Fed was on board in mid-January, then posted the ad online a week before the game. According to Cymfony, K-Fed beat other Super Bowl ad stars such as Sheryl Crow (Revlon) rev and Jessica Simpson (a pregame spot for Pizza Hut) yum to get the most positive buzz in media such as newspapers, TV and the Web.
Among this year's ads, Nail says a possible Justin Timberlake Pepsi ad already is getting a boatload of buzz.
Pepsi hasn't made it official that he's in, but fans seem to be salivating over what would be JT's first Big Game appearance since his pivotal role in Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" in the 2004 halftime.
Reebok's Super Bowl hit.
Fictional linebacker Terry Tate, at 6-foot-7 and 320 pounds, made a big hit in a 2003 Super Bowl ad for Reebok. The spot featured Tate as the Office Linebacker, who enforced office rules such as no goofing off and no personal calls. In the Super Bowl ad, the hulking enforcer took down a worker sneaking in a game of computer solitaire.
We asked readers for favorite Super Bowl ads, and Lloyd Kinlaw, 34, of Longview, Texas, raved about that ad and other Tate commercials that followed: "(They) cracked me up like no other commercials. Tate just wrecks his co-workers out of the blue!"
To weigh in with your favorite for the best-ever Super Bowl commercial, e-mail reporter Laura Petrecca at lpetrecca@usatoday.com.
By Laura Petrecca and Bruce Horovitz
ASK THE AD TEAM
Q. Who are the artists and what are the songs for the "Journey" diamond ads? In one, a couple sits in a car at a traffic light when a man slips the necklace into the woman's hand. In the other, a man places the necklace on a woman's chest as she sleeps.
A. It seems as if the two ads by the Diamond Trading Co. were noticed this holiday season — if not for the dazzling diamond necklaces they were trying to sell, then at least for the music.
In the traffic light ad, Landon Pigg, 24, sings "I'm falling for you" as snow falls down. The song, a single released in November, is Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop. The necklace is apparently such a hit that couple doesn't notice that the traffic light turn green. An aerial shot shows taxis driving around their car.
In the other ad, a woman wakes up in the morning as her husband gently places the necklace on her chest. The song is How Can I Tell You? The track, originally by Cat Stevens, is performed in the commercial by Charlyn "Chan" Marshall, 35, also known as Cat Power.