11/03/09

Thirty second commercial spots during the XLIV Super Bowl game Feb.7, 2010, will each earn CBS $2.5 million to $3 million; 80 percent of them have already been sold. Cars.com has just signed on for the third year in a row, as have CareerBuilder, Hyundai Motor, Monster, GoDaddy, Bridgestone, Coca-Cola, Frito-Lay and Pepsi-Cola. HomeAway, an Austin, Texas-based vacation rental service, will be airing a Super Bowl commercial for the first time, reported New York Times' Mediadecoder blog.

It seemed an easy decision for Cars.com to return to the Super Bowl, given last year's 98.7 million viewers, and the reported gain in Cars.com site awareness and traffic as a result. Record contacts came to Cars.com, according to the recent announcement about Super Bowl 2010. The 2009 Super Bowl ad also drove results to the site's mobile application, which has featured in the spot. The online auto-vertical giant will air one 60-second commercial in the first half, bulding on last year's popular David Abernathy "Lifetime of Confidence" ad. Currently in development by DDB, Chicago, the 2010 commercial will showcase how Cars.com gives shoppers the confidence they need as they prepare to head to the dealership to buy a car.

"As car buyers return to market in 2010, we want them to know Cars.com provides the tools, credible information and advice to help them make confident new and used-car purchase decisions," said Carolyn Crafts, Cars.com's VP of marketing, in the announcement. "Advertising on the Super Bowl gives us the opportunity to get that message out in a big way at the start of the year."

The HomeAway Super Bowl ad kicks off the beginning of the company’s first national broad reach marketing effort. This spring HomeAway worked with Publicis to test advertising creative in select markets in preparation for the 2010 campaign.

"Consumer awareness of vacation rentals is still low, even though it’s one of the fastest growing segments of online travel,” said Brian Sharples, founder and CEO of HomeAway, in its announcement.  “We’re going to use the Super Bowl broadcast to launch an exciting campaign highlighting the benefits of vacation rentals to reach more than 100 million people.”

HomeAway.com, with 425,000 vacation rental home listings, connects homeowners and property managers with travelers who seek the space, value and amenities of vacation rental homes as an alternative to hotels.  The site includes nearly 180,000 properties across 120 countries. In addition to its Texas headquarters, the company also has offices in England, Germany and France.