It’s been almost a week. Nobody’s talking about it.

What were top line results for those that advertised in this year’s Super Bowl? How much sales revenue was driven from viewer response?

This is the bottom line (and the top line).

It cost an average of $2,250,000 (before high production costs) to broadcast a television commercial during the Super Bowl this year (each 30 seconds). The Nielsen gang guesstimated 90 million viewers.

Assuming every one of those viewers attentively sat viewing those ads (and none were hitting the bathroom, getting a beer, or refilling the chili bowl), it cost 2.5 cents to show their ad to each person. From a price standpoint, that’s a pretty cheap method of getting a message in front of a market.

But was it cost-effective in driving sales?

Extremely hard to measure really. Plus there are the added benefits of advertising during the Super Bowl…

"The real value of a Super Bowl ad buy, they say [Madison Avenue], cannot be measured by simple media-buying metrics, such as cost per thousand (CPM) or audience reach, but must also include a host of other factors that generate corporate esteem, employee morale, trade support, public relations and, of course, plenty of water-cooler talk." — Broadcasting & Cable

I can see that.

But with all that time and few million dollars (or several millions for those that ran more than one spot), a talented team could do much more.

Imagine if they applied the all those resources (time & money) to a customer appreciation effort for their top customer segment, an employee recognition program, or just making a better product. What kind of word-of-mouth exposure would that generate?