Super Bowl Sunday is starting to look like a year-round marketing phenomenon.
Although the big game is still 151 days away and the official football season doesn’t kick off until Sunday, advertisers are suiting up even earlier than usual in hopes of blitzing the competition.
Yesterday, yogurt maker Dannon became the third major marketer to reveal its participation in the growing commercial extravaganza. The company snagged a 30-second spot even though it hasn’t yet decided on an ad agency.
“It’s an opportunity to break from the pack a little bit,” Dannon spokesman Michael Neuwirth told The Post. “Yogurt is not advertised in the Super Bowl and starting sooner allows us to further differentiate ourselves.”
Dannon skipped last year’s Super Bowl, but had a presence in 2012 with a spot for Greek yogurt brand Oikos, starring John Stamos. That year the firm didn’t announce its presence in the big game until December, or just two months in advance.
While major NFL sponsors and perennial Super Bowl advertisers such as Frito-Lay, Pepsi and Budweiser tend to make their presence known early, it’s unusual for most advertisers to try to gather marketing buzz so far in advance.
Dannon follows General Motors and Intuit into the big game, with marketers shelling out as much as $3.7 million for a single 30-second spot.
Intuit, the maker of Quicken software, was first out of the gate in July with news it would be joining the Super Bowl lineup.
This year, the game, which will be played at MetLife stadium on Feb. 2, is being billed as the first outdoor, cold weather Super Bowl.
The prime New York-area location is fueling a frenzy since it’s home to the proverbial Madison Avenue and clients will be on their doorstep waiting to be impressed.
“There’s a pressure for everything to be even bigger than usual,” said one veteran Super Bowl marketing expert. “Everyone’s looking for their Oreo moment.”
Last year, when CBS’s coverage of the Super Bowl suffered a temporary electrical outage, Oreo cookies rose to the occasion by tweeting, “You can still dunk in the dark.”
The quick-thinking marketing message not only caught the public’s attention but also won the ad industry’s highest honor, a Cannes Lions Grand Prix.
“Clearly the brands that stole the show this year exploited social media,” said Antony Young, president of Water Cooler Group. “The strategy leading up to the event and the potential buzz and conversation is media space that smart marketers are going to want to fill.”
He added: “The actual audience during the game is only part of the value to be leveraged from a Super Bowl placement.”
The Baltimore Ravens 34-31 win over the San Francisco 49ers drew 108.4 millions viewers in February, the third-highest viewed event in TV history. The 2012 Super Bowl drew 111.3 million viewers.
Social-media activity, or posts, reached a whopping 52 million, according to Trendrr, up from the prior year’s 17.4 million.