Football, cheese covered food, beer and monkeys

In case you have been living in a box, or perhaps you are not a sports fan, I’d like to remind you that this Sunday is Super Bowl Sunday. A day where millions will gather in front of their television screens to watch a bunch of dudes pound the crap out of one another so they can claim the title of World Champion and then go to Disneyland. In addition to watching the game, we also stuff our faces full of really bad food (bad for you, not bad tasting) and drink lots and lots and lots of beer.

1,200 calories: Amount the average Super Bowl watcher will consume while snacking. To burn that off, it would take walking for four hours or running an hour and 45 minutes.

30 percent: Increase in sales of processed-cheese loaves the week before last year’s Super Bowl. Flavored snack-cracker sales jumped 68 percent.

$11.8 million: Additional sales of beer (regular and light) during 2005 Super Bowl week.

Aside from the game itself, many people tune in to watch the commercials. Everyone knows and expects to see entertaining commercials during the Super Bowl, its part of the whole experience. Have you ever wondered why some companies chose to spend millions of dollars on a Super Bowl ad and others don’t? Inc.com published a story today that tries to answer that question and it isn’t necessarily about having budget as our very own V.P. of marketing John Lusk explains in an interview with the reporter last week:

“You have to have a very good understanding of brand before you do something of that nature,” WhitePages.com’s vice president of marketing John Lusk said, noting his company’s own brand is still evolving. “A growing company is constantly trying to reinvent itself, and with that, you’re always reassessing who you are. So for us to spend $2 million telling people who we are and knowing that that could change in nine months is a big waste.”

“Our background, that scrappiness culture really sticks with you and it forces you to better understand where to get the best bang for your buck,” Lusk adds.

You can read the complete article online at the Inc.com site. It includes perspective from other industry experts including Go Daddy.com, a company known for their “interesting” Super Bowl advertising.

If you are curious about the ads for this year’s game, you can catch a sneak peek here.