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Unconventional ad generated by unconventional generation
By Lindsay Street
Staff Writer
Mark Timms, 29, embodying Times 2006 Person of the Year (“you”), decided he wanted in on the glory and guaranteed exposure of Superbowl advertisements. Assembling a 3-man team of 20-somethings, Timms intends to create an ad that gives national exposure during the No. 1 commercial primetime for an affordable price tag, starting at $15,000.
Of course, that will only buy a person wearing a T-shirt with the company’s name in the commercial.
Timms’ commercial will air for 30 seconds during the Superbowl, which will cost about $3 million. During the ad, a song will play while a person holding cards will flash names of businesses. Each sign will cost around $100,000 per second of exposure.
People who have acquired Internet fame through popular public relations stunts will walk in and out of the frame in the background wearing t-shirts with company logos. Product placement will be a feature, with soda cans placed prominently and trucks driving by in camera range.
The commercial will be low budget, unlike many of its Superbowl ad companions.
Originally from Greenwood, Timms moved to Charleston eight months ago, but his ad idea has been brewing for several years.
Timms thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to have a collaborative effort for a commercial inside a commercial?” Something to just get the vital information to the audience and cut through the unnecessary emotional appeal and that would offer the national exposure of the Superbowl ad time to small businesses unable to afford the millions of dollars necessary to make an appearance, he said.
After Superbowl XLI, Timms began making calls in February to get his brainchild off the ground.
“I knew my idea would fly,” Timms said.
The first person he called was Kyle MacDonald, also known as the One Red Paper Clip guy, who gained notoriety on the Internet by acquiring a house through a series of trade-ups beginning with a red paper clip. He has sold his story to moviemaker DreamWorks.
Through MacDonald, Timms began building his three-man team with Evan White, 23. White manages public relations for MacDonald and, now, for Timms.
“(The idea) really intrigued me,” White said, noting it fit his No. 1 criteria for taking on a project: “It had never been done.”
The two formed MyBowlAd LLC. Soon after, White’s college friend Robert Howie, 25, was heading up the company’s Web site, www.mybowlad.com. Howie works for a company that creates Web sites for movies and for celebrities such as the band Black Eyed Peas.
The MyBowlAd project is not the first “underdog” to attempt to make a Superbowl commercial or the first to attempt to make money off Internet hype. In 2006, Rand Fishkin launched a site dedicated to receiving donations allowing him to purchase an ad for the purpose of proposing to his then-girlfriend during the Super Bowl. Fishkin raised more than $75,000, but his Super Bowl ad dreams failed when the commercial slots were all sold out. He settled for a slot during a Seattle-local TV program.
“MyBowlAd.com is different from the proposal ad because we’ll actually do it,” White said in an e-mail to the Business Journal. “Also, he was an Internet beggar and we’re selling legitimate ad spots.”
The future of advertising changes with this three-man crew, Timms said. The team personifies the generation of ordinary people are becoming extraordinary through podcasts, Web sites and blogs.
“People are becoming increasingly more bored with mainstream media,” White said, adding that the day of media dictating one-way content is over.
People such as MacDonald reach stardom among the Internet audience, which attracts a following of 7 million, White said. MyBowlAd is a way for the average Joe to reach a previously unreachable goal of having a Superbowl ad, he said.
“(The ad) gives people the feeling of hope,” Timms said.
It is underdogs giving other underdogs the opportunity for national exposure, White said.
The team could be the youngest and smallest crew that has ever attempted to produce a Superbowl commercial, he added.
“(Being successful in advertising is) not about age any more; it’s about knowledge (and understanding),” White said. It is about the ability “to get it. Changing the face of advertising is really cool.”
Times are changing and advertisements need to re-evaluate, Timms said. In the days of DVR, many TV viewers have the option of skipping over commercials and over the emotional pulls and hype. He said using public relations stunts – such as trading a paper clip for a home or hitchhiking to 50 state capitols in 50 days – to sell an idea or product are the future of advertisement.
“You don’t have to have 30 seconds of crap (to get your message out there),” Timms said.
Television commercials are perfectly suited and best used for brand experience, said Bruce Murdy, president of Rawle Murdy Associates. Cutting out the emotion of advertisement in a TV commercial has the potential of not drawing in new customers, he added.
The Superbowl offers advertisers the opportunity to reach a broad audience and create a brand experience, Murdy said, noting that the biggest challenge facing the three men will be making it powerful.
Murdy is not convinced the MyBowlAd commercial is a great advertising technique, but conceded that the commercial ad scene was in transition and that MyBowlAd may be a few years “ahead of the game.”
“We’re in a world not just of revolution but evolution,” he said. Television and print ads will become “niche players along with other niche players.”
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