No Super Bowl Commercial?

Hey man no need to be a douche.  I know what the word results means and I know how business works.  I also know that sometimes you have to take risks.  No show or show runner EVER has hard factual evidence that they will get a return on what they spend their money on. 

Looking at some blockbuster movies like this lately the amount of money they rake in is in the hundreds of millions of dollars, in some cases surpasing a half a billion dollars.  Let's say an advertiser spent the premium, 4 million dollars per 30 seconds, for air time for a two minute trailer.  That would be 16 million dollars on what could easily be a return far exceeding that if it helps the movie bring in say $500 million or more (and let's face it, many many media outlets are placing this at the top of their most anticipated lists the number of which was last seen with the Avengers which brought in over a billion if I recall correctly).  It's high risk high reward that's the point. 

Oh, and as for those long commercials?  Here are the longest ones, and yes, they were this long when they aired (I remember watching each of these live too.  I love watching SuperBowl ads).  Also note the number of views form people who re-watched them after... one numbers in the millions, the others in the hundreds of thousands.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKL254Y_jtc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRtvpMPLQ8o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBsWYcWwpr4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTbLBL2P6YA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-SJQdREDKM

I wil grant that the last example is not the best example of a well done as well as long super bowl commercial but the point stands.  The Super Bowl is viewed by over 100 million people.  The point of advertising, as I'm sure you know, is to promote your product to the largest audience possible.  The more you promote a good, strong, message to the more likely you will receive a fair if not excellent rate of return.  Therefore, if you want to get the message out about Godzilla, which is slowly happening but still has a long ways to go as evidence by how many people I know who don't even know this movie is being made, it could make sense to go the Superbowl route.  If all else fails we all know the media will cover whatever the longest commercial was the next day which brings it even more attention. 

Like I said that's my opinion.  I'm trying to be nice so please don't be a douche. 

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No show or show runner EVER has hard factual evidence that they will get a return on what they spend their money on.

Very true. That's why the Nielson ratings system exists. It gives them a worked (albiet, flawed) factsheet that tells them if they should continue or not. 

Let's say an advertiser spent the premium, 4 million dollars per 30 seconds, for air time for a two minute trailer.  That would be 16 million dollars on what could easily be a return far exceeding that if it helps the movie bring in say $500 million or more (and let's face it, many many media outlets are placing this at the top of their most anticipated lists the number of which was last seen with the Avengers which brought in over a billion if I recall correctly).  It's high risk high reward that's the point. 

But the problem is there is no way to determine if a Super Bowl ad had anything to do with a movie raking in those kind of numbers. There is no system able to determine if a Super Bowl ad helped a movie get to $500 million or not. In the case of Paramount Pictures, Star Trek into Darkness didn't perform to the expectations they had hoped. There was a Super Bowl ad for that movie and they later admitted fault to spending the dough on that. All it did was put an already expensive movie further into a hole. $16 million is a great deal of money. Some smaller movies are made on a budget like that and it's simply not worth risking that much on something like a Super Bowl ad.

As for those ads, I'll have to take your word for it, but I don't remember them being quite as long. It'll be interesting to see which ads do run long for the Super Bowl this year and how much certain companies spent on them.

The Super Bowl is viewed by over 100 million people.  The point of advertising, as I'm sure you know, is to promote your product to the largest audience possible.  The more you promote a good, strong, message to the more likely you will receive a fair if not excellent rate of return.

Very true, but the fact that 70% of that 100 million remember the comercials you posted over movie trailers in the last year isn't encouraging for film studios and they're going to need harder evidence to make that kind of leap. By all means, I'd love Godzilla to have a Super Bowl trailer, but it's not something that will break the movie. And it's certainly not something that will propel it to boxoffice gold either. At most, it would just raise some awarness and that's just not worth $8-$16 million when that amount could be more appropriately spread to various TV spots and other media promotions closer to its release.

Interestingly, I could see Transformers going for a minute long spot. The difference simply being that Transformers has already proven to make an annoyingly large amount of dough three seperate time and that this is the movies first trailer. That's a much bigger deal than a secondary trailer or TV spot. But again, there are also hard numbers in Transformers favor. Not a lot of risk there.

I feel you are making an odd distinction here... you seem to be assuming that what's good for the goose isn't good for the gander.  What I mean by this is that a company advertises it's product during the Super Bowl to promote it's product and increase it's awareness/popularity/sales/namebrand/etc.  The same could be said to apply to movies.  Movies are products that are sold in the form of tickets.  They are a commodity much like beer, cars, etc.  Showing a memorable enough trailer could do for Godzilla what advertising does for Chrysler, budweiser, etc.  Sure the creators of Star Trek think they made a mistake premiering the trailer there... then again they premiered a very short trailer that didn't show much.  I actually remember the teaser trailer for Transformers 2 premiering during it's Super Bowl and being actually quite impressed with that one.  Now yes you are correct it wouldn't be a premiere... yet they could premiere something big enough to draw attention, such as showing Godzilla or one of the MUTOS or a battle of some sort that would draw more attention.  I agree not having one will hopefully not break the movie... however I'm not terribly sure when they will premiere the actual trailer.  300 seems too far out from now/too close to Godzilla's actual release and I can't think of any other big WB/Legendary movies coming out between now and then so it's going to be interesting... I almost feel like Legendary waited too long to release the teaser that came out with the Hobbit. 

You're right, movies are a commodity to be sold like beer/cars...etc... But it's a product that's not reaching the Super Bowl audience according studies. That's great you remember the trailer for Transformers 2 and that you seem to be a part of the 30% that is taken by movie trailers. I for one didn't even remember Transformers 2 being advertised. Nor do I recall any other trailers outside of Star Trek, but that's because I was looking for it.

Based on that it may not be the most lucrative outlet to advertise films. So what if it's not, as you say, good for the gander? We have to consider the audience and what they cater to. "Millions of people" don't always equate the "target people". You wouldn't advertise Criminal Minds during Power Rangers. Maybe movies aren't the right outlet to advertise during the Super Bowl? There isn't necessarily evidence of that, but there is evidence these spots aren't staying with the Super Bowl audience like other ads. Perhaps those studies are on to something.

In any case I feel like the advertising for Godzilla has been fairly standard just as any other movie. Saving the Godzilla trailer for the end of the year and releasing it after the X-Men and Captain America trailers was brilliant because it sticks out more and overshadows previously released trailers. I think most people are just nervous after what happened to Pacific Rim-- which is understandable, but not entirely warranted. That and there's an arrogant sense of self-entitlment from a large portion of the fanbase. Many of them just want more immediately and others feel Godzilla should get a special treatment because, well, they're fans of it.

@GMAN2887 The main thing here is that this event would get the trailer out to other people. Statistics and studies don't matter. Who cares if they watch it again? The point is to get a large amount of people to acknowledge the movie exists. That's what marketing is about. Playing it safe gets you no where. You have to take financial risks in order to reach new audience. This discussion is closed. You are fighting just to preserve the dominance of your opinion, pitiful. 

I believe batman lol

@The-True-Batman

Actually I'm quite enjoying the discussion; but since you feel the need to chime in and repeat things I've already said, I'll, once again, admit that I completely agree it would raise awareness to the general public. But a trailer that costs that much money needs to do more than simply raise awareness. There needs to be promise of return. You hit a ceiling in promotions depending on the outlet/medium and after a few million, you've very much hit it. I'm sorry you're unable to understand such a concept.

I enjoy that you're telling me what marketing is about considering my work though. That was amusing.