$3.5 million commercial spot? Why not.

The Super Bowl is the single most watched sporting event of the year. Last week's Giants-Patriots match-up captured 111.3 million viewers, according to The Nielsen Co., making it the most watched television show in U.S. history. As prices increase for ad placement, companies continue to fight for coveted Super Bowl spots- but are they worth the money?

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A 30 sec. spot for the big game averages $3.5 million. This is an absurd amount of money for less than a minute of screen time, but in my opinion, Super Bowl commercials are a must for big companies.

Looking past the idea that these commercials are expected for some companies, (Budweiser, Coca-Cola, Chevy) Super Bowl ads are a major draw for many viewers. The rising popularity of social media also gives advertisers another reason to turn to the Super Bowl.

It makes sense that a group of college students, from Queen's University, see how this new trend could impact Super Bowl advertisers.

"The Super Bowl has long been one of the most prestigious TV advertising events of the year, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon. But as the industry continues to shift towards a more targeted, social media based model, companies and brands of all sizes should be taking notice." - The Queens Journal 

Wired reported that Twitter averaged 12,233 Tweets per second. Last year tweets topped out at 4,064 tweets per second.

Even with this new found buzz of the web, a multimillion dollar ad placement is hard to swallow, especially contrasted to a regular Sunday Night Football ad cost ($512,000 for 30 seconds). One reason that favors Super Bowl ads is the low cost per viewer. The Wall Street Journal reported that the average cost per viewer was $0.03 for a 30 sec. commercial.
There are those who argue that the reach the Super Bowl provides does not transfer to sales. This may be true for some products, but if the product and commercial are right, the Super Bowl can do amazing things for a brand. I think a good example to prove my point is a recent Super Bowl star, little Darth Vader.

The Volkswagen Passat commercial ("The Force"), featured during last year's Super Bowl, was the run away favorite. The video has since: been viewed 50.8 million times on YouTube, Little Vader himself on The Today Show to be "unmasked"  and the ad has even spawned many YouTube spoofs.

All this is nice in getting the Volkswagen name out there, but what about sales?

It turns out those are just fine as well. The Volkswagen Passat NMS began production in 2011 and was introduced with the famous commercial. According to Autoguide.com, Volkswagen has increased production on the Passat. MotorTrend also reports that they made 50,000 2012 Passats in eight months.

It may be hard to find direct evidence relating the sales figures of the Passat to "The Force" commercial, but the amount of buzz that the ad generated is hard to overlook.