Preview of Super Bowl Ads
CUOMO: Football music, Super Bowl 50, the big game. Let's get some Bleacher Report check-in with my football fratello, Coy Wire. What do you know about the half time show?</s>COY WIRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, this year's half time show will be a spectacle, no doubt about it. British band Coldplay is headlining, we know Beyonce will be showing up, and there's also word about potential surprise performers. Now, Coldplay spoke at a news conference yesterday, and lead singer Chris Martin sounded like he's on the campaign trail.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... paid. How does it all come together? How did you get it?</s>CHRIS MARTIN, MUSICIAN: We started in Iowa three years ago.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have a great day.</s>WIRE: Now word is that Martin also said Coldplay hopes to trump all previous half time performances, but that would, if we're talking Iowa, that would mean they would be second best. So, Chris, maybe they said that they'd Cruz to the top of the all time Super Bowl half time performances. Either way, it's going to be a good one, buddy.</s>CUOMO: I mean, truly, you have an astounding intellect. Thank you for reading the tea leaves, my brother. We'll be doing more in the CNN special that we're going to shoot out here with Dan Marino and it airs tomorrow. We'll tell you more about that in just a second. But whether you like football or not, you know you love the Super Bowl because of the ads. How much are they this year? What's the return on investment for companies? Which is the best? We're going to give you a real tease of some real tasty Super Bowl commercial treats, and we have the man to do it with us, the CEO of BSSP Advertising, Mr. Greg Stern is with us right now.</s>GREG STERN, CEO, BSSP ADVERTISING: Hello.</s>CUOMO: Thank you very much.</s>STERN: Thanks.</s>CUOMO: Now, your firm did the MINI Cooper ad which is getting a lot of hype, but I'm not here just to , you know, blow the whistle for your particular client. We'll get to them in a second, obviously, but how much are the ads this year and what does the company get for that?</s>STERN: They say that the average price for an ad is about 4, 4.5, maybe up to $5 million. It all depends on....</s>CUOMO: For 30 seconds.</s>STERN: ... negotiation and what you get with it. What you get with it is a massive audience. This is one of the last live broadcast events where people can reach -- advertisers can reach a massive audience. We just did a survey with a company called Serbabda (ph). 61 percent of the people who responded to the survey who intend to watch the Super Bowl said that the ads make the Super Bowl more fun. They're watching the game for the ads as much.</s>CUOMO: I believe that. The theatricality of them has really gone up. So, sell me on the MINI cooper. Not the car, the ad and concept behind it.</s>STERN: Well, in selling you on the concept I will sell you on the car as well. MINI has a wide range of models now. It's a family car. It's more powerful than people expect it to be.</s>CUOMO: Can you and I, guys our size, fit in them now?</s>STERN: I've been driving MINI coopers for the last 10 years.</s>CUOMO: Of course you have.</s>STERN: I'm on my fourth. Yes, of course I have. And I have a family, so yes. Yes is the answer to that. A lot of people have had misperceptions about MINI Cooper. A lot of people have, you know, thought things, that it's a small car it's an under performing car. So, we've taken that on its head with a campaign called defy labels. We've taken Serena Williams, Randy Johnson.</s>CUOMO: Alec Baldwin.</s>STERN: Tony Hawk. Alec Baldwin is not in our ad.</s>CUOMO: Oh, he's not?</s>STERN: No, he's not, but thank you.</s>CUOMO: They gave us that - they gave it to me.</s>STERN: No, Harvey Keitel is in our ad and we've taken all of these celebrities...</s>CUOMO: Same thing.</s>STERN: ... athletes, Alec Baldwin/ Harvey Keitel? Okay.</s>CUOMO: Willem Dafoe?</s>STERN: Dafoe is not in our ad either.</s>CUOMO: Oh, so he just must be in an ad. See, that's right.</s>STERN: These are other...</s>CUOMO: He plays Marilyn Monroe.</s>STERN: Correct.</s>CUOMO: I got you, I got you.</s>STERN: Those are celebrities that are in other ads.</s>CUOMO: So, what are you doing with them?</s>STERN: They are talking about how they have defied labels through their career.</s>CUOMO: Oh, cool.</s>STERN: So, this is the interesting thing about Super Bowl advertising, it's not just a 30-second ad within the game. There is long form videos that people are seeking out and looking at in social media before the game., they're talking about it during the game and after the game as well.</s>CUOMO: Multilevel strategy now employed...</s>STERN: Exactly. Before, during and after.</s>CUOMO: ... to try and monazite the up front costs. Got you. The Intuit. So, Intuit does this contest, the person who wins it gets to advertise at the Super Bowl for their own company. The guys who win, Death Wish Coffee...</s>STERN: Right.</s>CUOMO: ... wins. If you want to play a little of their ad. What a huge opportunity for a company that would never have the kind of capital to do something like this. What's your take?</s>STERN (voice-over): Well, I think Intuit gets a lot of credit because they're positioning themselves to help small businesses with their products. They are helping this small business in the ultimate way by giving them a vehicle on the Super Bowl to advertise.</s>STERN (on camera): Very, very small business, small product, more exposure than they could ever get otherwise.</s>CUOMO: Now, the one that really got me, what do you make of this Audi ad? So interesting, what we've seen in this evolution of mentioning the product less and less and letting the imagery kind of empower the sale. This one is about the aging astronaut as a father, the John Glenn motif of everything...</s>STERN: Sure.</s>CUOMO: ... that was going on on the moon., and then the son introduces this rocket ship of a car. It really is poignant. What do you think of that play?</s>STERN: Well, very poignant, very emotional. John Glenn, national hero. He finds more excitement in the Audi than, you know, as much as he found when he was blasting off from Earth. So you know, very effective emotional play.</s>CUOMO: How powerful is it to play on someone's heart strings when trying to sell a product?</s>STERN: In the Super Bowl you have animals, you have celebrities, you have emotion and you have humor. We did a little look back and we found that looking at Gallup, evaluating the mood of the country, the Super Bowl -- tone of super bowl ads reflected the tone of the country. So, when we got into the great recession, everything was toned down a little bit. We saw patriotism, we saw family values. As things got better with the economy, humor came back, but even the humor was more subdued, wasn't the frat boy humor that we would see with the previous beer advertising. Now that's coming back because the mood of the nation has lightened up.</s>CUOMO: Lightened up. That's some word to use in light of what we're seeing with the election right now. Greg Stern, thank you so much. It's so good to get inside the mind of those who make these commercials.</s>STERN: Thanks very much, appreciate it.</s>CUOMO: Good luck with your ad. A quick programming note for you , I'm not just out here in California to talk about commercials, nor just to talk about Super Bowl 50 in the remote. We're here to do a special. We're going to be with the hall of fame quarterback Dan Marino. Our special is called Kickoff By The Bay. We're going to give you an all-access look at what's going to happen at Levi's Stadium, 2:30 p.m. Eastern tomorrow on CNN. Check it out. We'll be right back after this.