The blowout Gladiatorial Match of the Year, aka the Super Bowl, is now upon us. Spectacle fans of all ages, races, sexes and denominations are geared up for a long day of chattering heads, cool new commercials, musical extravaganzas and guacamole dip. Oh, and football.
The Super Bowl is America’s most-watched TV show. Last year, over 110 million people viewed the Seahawks-Broncos game. Throw in another 5-10 mil for Ireland, UK, continental Europe, Africa, all those other countries who now tune in the way Americans now tune in the World Cup. It’s huge.
An event that draws this much attention is not only attractive to people wearing team colors, but also to social interest and protest groups who want to make a big splash. This year’s Super Bowl will feature a number of them, starting with Native Americans.
The Super Bowl is also Big Money, with literally more than a billion dollars at stake: Almost $250 million for 55 commercials at around $4.5 million a pop and another $60 million to produce them; $220 million for seats at the game; $20 million for the half-time show; millions more for salaries for players, coaches, on-air talent, production crews, off-duty cops and parking attendants. Oh, and gambling: $119 million in 2014, and that was just for dollars running through registered gambling channels, not office pools.
Nonprofits want their Super Bowl Moment, too
With so much money floating around, nonprofits and social awareness groups set up tents and plead their causes. Corporations help them do it, paying for tents and premium space right outside the stadium to create a “village” for cause-related organizations.
Of course, these corporations are milking the PR to the max for their good deeds. This year, the NLF and Verizon are the big sponsors for nonprofits in Super Bowl XLIX.
Here’s a guide to those causes hoping to make a ripple among 100 million people:
Native Americans Super Bowl protest
The most highly anticipated protest group is the NCAI (the National Congress of Native American Indians), who has been making a great deal of noise in NFL football circles with their “Change the Mascot” campaign. The NCAI want the Washington Redskins to change their name. The NCAI isn’t suggesting an alternative name; they just don’t want it to be “Redskins.”
The NCAI aired a beautiful, brilliant commercial, “Proud to Be,” on YouTube last year, timed to coincide with the Super Bowl. The spot gained traction through appearances on news shows and in social media. The YouTube link has been watched 3.3 million times.
This year the NCAI has continued its advocacy, raising $22,286 via Kickstarter under the hashtag “#ChangetheMascot SuperBowl Ad.” According to their proposal, the NCAI will use the funds to create a unique new video:
“We’ll digitally remove the offensive logos from an exciting Washington highlight video and show the world what it will look like when the name is gone. No R-word, no mascots, no racism. But the amazing football play and players remain. In this way, we’ll remind Washington fans that their memories and tradition will remain when the mascot changes.
“This idea requires complicated and time-consuming digital re-touching in editing studios of the commercial makers who are giving so much of their time and effort to this campaign. And we’ve got a lot of work to do to get the word out with our digital campaign. Compared to the millions of dollars for Super Bowl ads, $20,000 dollars is not much, but it will prove that when you’ve got a message that matters, you don’t need a lot of money.”
Save the Rainforests Protest
A social interest group named SumOfUs has a remarkable protest lined up for the Super Bowl. They’ve created something they call “A Cheesy Love Story.”
A Cheesy Love Story - The Ad Doritos Doesn’t Want You to See
“A Cheesy Love Story” appears to be a Doritos commercial. Doritos, a PepsiCo company, is a big deal at the Super Bowl, running multiple TV commercials in the game. Doritos also invests heavily in social media, using a trick: they intentionally create spots that the network will reject as too racy to air. Doritos then promotes these commercials on social media as “banned” spots.
For Super Bowl 2015, Doritos is running their “Crash the Super Bowl” contest for the 9th year. The contest invites filmmakers to create the most Doritos-y commercial possible, with the possibility the spot will air during the Super Bowl.
SumOfUs responded to the “Crash the Super Bowl” challenge. Here’s the story line for “A Cheesy Love Story”:
Boy meets girl when both reach for a chip… which leads to chips at the movies, chips at the grocery store, chips in bed, chips Christmas tree ornaments, intimate chips in a shared bathtub, chips confetti as they exit the church, chips silkscreened on their t-shirts as they honeymoon in an exotic location where… where all the forests have been leveled to the ground to produce palm oil to make Doritos.
A perfect blend of excellent talent, beautiful production, a lighthearted whistling score and an absolute hammer-ending make this 2015 Super Bowl non-spot spot the perfect grist for social media. In the first four days of its posting on YouTube, “A Cheesy Love Story” had racked up close to 1 million times and is now approaching the 2 million mark.
Charities Don’t Protest, They Ask
The Phoenix area will host a large number of charity events, from the pet charities of the NFL to independent charities using the backdrop of the Super Bowl to woo donors. They will take advantage of the huge influx of people to Phoenix: while the stadium hits capacity at 63,400 people, the city will swell with more than one million new visitors.
Among the larger Super Bowl charity events:
Verizon Campus
Super Bowl sponsor Verizon has taken the charity route to build its brand at the Super Bowl, eschewing halftime fluff for meaningful contributions to the local communities. Verizon has roped off a huge “free, family-friendly, football-themed outdoor fan campus” area around the stadium with exhibits, runs, events and other good-fun stuff. A number of charities are involved, including a youth-development group called Arizona Super Bowl Charities.
NFL Super Bowl Host Committee
This organization provides philanthropic donations to local charities wherever the Super Bowl is held. All of the charities are in the fields of education or health and wellness.
STEM
STEM is a nationwide program to promote excellence in learning and teaching in science and technology. One of the Super Bowl Host Committee members, mining company Freeport McMoRan, awarded money and prizes to local Arizona public and private schools.
Small Causes Go Where the Big Money is: Big Sports
While there is a chance that one of the NLF players will make a political gesture or Seattle fans will suddenly break out into a “save the salmon” chant, the chances are slim. Simple gestures like the ‘black power’ protest by American athletes at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico have been replaced by far more calculated and complex productions that use the full power of Hollywood and Madison Avenue to get their points across.
Likewise, the charities that promote education, better health and other worthy social causes today are cogs in giant PR machines, dependent on the largesse of their corporate sponsors. No where is that more evident than at the biggest sports event of them all, the Super Bowl.
Tackling Domestic Violence Head On
This year, the NFL itself is using the Super Bowl as an opportunity to spread a powerful message. After a tumultuous season and a good deal of negative PR, the league has partnered with NoMore to create a one minute public-service announcement denouncing domestic abuse. The message of the ad is: “When it’s hard to talk, it’s up to us to listen” and it will air during the Game on Sunday.
What to Expect in Super Bowl 50
With the fiftieth anniversary game only 13 months away, host San Francisco Bay area Super Bowl organizers have already raised well over $40 million.
The San Francisco Super Bowl Fifty Committee recently announced it would dedicate $10 million, or one-quarter of the money it has raised thus far, to charities that match Silicon Valley’s “data-driven standards” for generosity with minimal administrative costs.
