One Hundred Dollar Super Bowl Ads For Small Businesses? That Would Save You $2,999,900.00!

What’s the matter, spending $3,000,000 for a commercial to air during Super Bowl XLIII sound a little too steep for you?

How’s a measly $100 sound?

Yesterday, a new website, HundredDollarSuperBowlAd.com launched and plans on dropping $300,000.00 from the sky during Super Bowl XLIII.

Where’s the $300,000 going to come from?  It’ll come from the money generated from selling a TON of $100 ad spots on their website.

To advertise your business, all you need to do is select your state, city, click on an open ad spot, pay your $100 bucks and send them in image you’d like displayed along with your URL.

It sure is a WhackedOut Marketing idea that puts a spin on the whole Million Dollar Home Page craze awhile back… But will it work?  Let’s dig into this One Hundred Dollar Super Bowl Ad idea a little more…

As per the recent press release, the owner states that there are 36 spots to advertise on 217 different city pages.  That’s a total of 7,812 ad spots he hopes to sell.

And if the One Hundred Dollar Super Bowl Ad website sells all 7,812 spots at $100 bucks a pop, that’s $781,200.00 of revenue.  Now of course we minus the $300,000 he plans to dump out of the sky onto a small city, he’s left with $481,200.00.  Minus PayPal charges, minus renting a plane, security, etc… Bobby Davis, the guy behind this website, should still be left with around  $400,000.00 or so in his pocket.

With a cool $400,000, he should be able to afford front row seats to the 2010 Super Bowl… maybe he’ll even have enough left over for a beer or two.

But still… will this WhackedOut Marketing idea work?

A key phrase on the One Hundred Dollar Super Bowl Ads press release is… “Once all the spots have been sold, $300,000 of the revenue will be showered in small bills over one US city during Super Bowl XLIII.”

Yes… Once all the spots have been sold is the big kicker.

Personally, I do not believe this will work.  Potentially he’ll get some press.  He may even build a little buzz.  But in my personal opinion, there are some big flaws here.

My WhackedOut Marketing Ideas For The One Hundred Dollar Super Bowl Ad Publicity Stunt… Oh Boy… Here We Go Again!

OK.  Here’s the deal.  I wish Bobby contacted me first before he launched his website and published his press release.  We could have made some big things happen.  Oh well.

A little side note, if you haven’t already, be sure you talk to a lawyer to make sure you can have the word “Super Bowl” in a domain name or on a website… especially since you are trying to pocket $400,000.00 on your idea.  Seriously.  Be careful.  Read this page for potential copyright issues using the term, “Super Bowl” or “SuperBowl”.  You knows, you may be OK, but check to make sure!

Anyway, I’ll share some of my ideas below… however, I’ll be keeping a few other gems that plopped into my head to myself to be used for future publicity stunts for myself or future clients.  :)

WhackedOut Idea # 1: Bobby should have hired a website designer to create a very fun website that would WOW visitors.  That would have cost around $500.

WhackedOut Idea # 2: He should have had an amazing video created that was shown right on the home page.  (I’ll hold off on sharing my totally WhackedOut script idea for this video.)

WhackedOut Idea # 3: He should have created a squeeze page with incredible graphics, incredible copy, a jaw-dropping video, and an opt-in form where business owners could submit their name and email address to get onto his “Priority Notification List”.

WhackedOut Idea # 4: He should have created 4-5 different funny videos to upload to all of the video sites.  (Yup, I’ll hold off on sharing my WhackedOut viral video ideas for this campaign.)

WhackedOut Idea # 5: He should have written (or hired someone to write) a special report on how small businesses can take advantage of this recession by implementing untraditional marketing strategies to make 2009 their most profitable year ever.

All of the above should have been developed first before ANYTHING was launched.  Once everything was in place, the funny viral videos specifically created for small business owners would be uploaded one at a time over a period of X days.  The videos then direct people to the squeeze page.

Once a business owner is on the VERY well designed squeeze page, they watch another video (idea for content of that video removed due to the WhackedOut factor).  After spending a minute on the site, they understand what is going on.  

The visitors also see an opt-in box where they can enter in their name and email address to get on the Priority Notification list, PLUS they get the incredible report (mentioned in # 5) which is a $19.95 value, for free!

So now you have viral videos driving traffic to the landing page (or squeeze page - same thing) and now your building a list of highly qualified prospects.

You then launch an all-out Internet Marketing blitz to drive more traffic to that landing page.  (The WhackedOut Internet Marketing bliz how-to content is confidential and cannot be published here.)

While all of this is going on, you then launch the first phase of the publicity stunt.  (There are three phases that would need to be implemented to make this all work.)

Once phase 1 is launched, you build on that buzz and while riding on the wave of momentum created, you launch phase 2.  And you guessed it, once phase 2 starts to really hit, you launch phase 3.

Phase 3 is when you actually launch the main website.

Note: There is a potential to actually have 20-30 or more phases in this launch.  It would take me 2 days to write out that plan here, so I’ll just leave it at that.

Now all along while working on phase 1, 2, and 3, you’re doing everything to build a list of business owners who are perfect candidates to take advantage of this offer.

A few more WhackedOut publicity and marketing things happen… and BOOM.  You let everyone know on your list that you are launching the site on XXX - an exact day and time.

Let them know that there are only a limited amount of spots for each city.  Also let them know the HUGE benefits to paying just $100 to have their site listed on your page.  (I cannot go into all of the details of my WhackedOut idea here, but there is ONE simple thing you could do that would create an absolute stampede of people rushing to buy an ad spot… maybe 2… maybe 3… maybe 10.)

Anyway, the above is a VERY short version of the plan that plopped into my head for the One Hundred Dollar Super Bowl Ads idea.

There’s a lot to it.  The full plan would take me at least 2 full days to draft and would be 30 or so pages - or more.  A few more websites would need to be created - I didn’t go into any detail about that above.  A few more videos would need to be created… press releases… podcasts… 100+ articles written… over 1,000 emails would need to be sent out to a certain group of businesses who would LOVE to promote this on their website for you… there are options to get another 1,000+ people promoting this for you who all speak directly to your pool of potential buyers each and every single day… and on and on and on and on….

So again, I hate to say it, but I do not see the One Hundred Dollar Super Bowl Ads website and idea working, based on how the website is set up now and due to the HUGE lack of pre-marketing, seeding, and mini-publicity stunts that needed to be done way before the site went live.

 Yes, he may be able to get some businesses to buy an ad.  But I feel he’ll fall very short of even reaching 1,000… or possibly even 100 with this current publicity model.

Who knows, maybe he has something else up his sleeve that none of us know about and within in the next couple of weeks each and every single ad is sold.  That would be great to see… but so would some really WhackedOut marketing fueling this promotion.

What do my 4 or 5 blog readers think about the above?  Post your comments below!

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