For Super Bowl XLVI, a Bigger Batch of First-Time Advertisers

SOMETIMES a team comes to the Super Bowl having never played one. That is also true on the advertising side of the game. And for Super Bowl XLVI, to be broadcast by NBC on Feb. 5, there will more first-time sponsors than usual.

The Super Bowl newbies include two luxury car brands, Acura and Lexus; Century 21, the real estate firm; the Dannon Company division of Groupe Danone; the H&M retail chain, which will advertise a new line of David Beckham Bodywear underwear; and 2nd Story Software, the maker of TaxACT tax-preparation software.

The rookies’ commercials will run amid dozens from marketers with extensive Super Bowl experience, among them Anheuser-Busch, Audi, Bridgestone, CareerBuilder, Cars.com, Chrysler, E*Trade, General Motors, GoDaddy.com, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mars, PepsiCo, Toyota and Volkswagen.

Some tyros are following in the footsteps of corporate siblings that are longtime sponsors. For instance, Acura is a stablemate of Honda under the Honda Motor banner, and Lexus, like Toyota, is part of Toyota Motor.

Other Super Bowl novices are flying solo, gambling that the potential return on investing in a spot will outweigh the danger of flopping. Indeed, several Super Bowl advertisers stumbled their first time out, among them Cash 4 Gold, Groupon and Just for Feet.

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To try to insure that they stand out without falling flat, the Super Bowl newcomers are emulating the veteran advertisers in developing elaborate plans to capitalize on their spots in the game, for which NBC is charging an average of $3.5 million for each 30 seconds.

“We’re going to have a massive social media and public relations campaign,” said Sergio Fuster, senior vice president for marketing at Dannon, which will advertise a new product, Dannon Oikos Greek yogurt, with a 30-second commercial in the third quarter.

Although “there are very high expectations” for a first-timer, he added, “we’re sure it’s going to be very impactful” because consumers liked the spot in tests.

The commercial may also stand out because it was created for Dannon by Poptent, a company that specializes in crowdsourcing ads for major marketers, with the advice of the Dannon creative agency of record, Y&R New York.

“About 31 of our best creators” were invited to come up with ideas for the spot, said Neil Perry, president at Poptent in Conshohocken, Pa., and Dannon selected a submission from Remy Neymarc, 21, who runs Neymarc Visuals in Weehawken, N.J., with his brother, Andrew.

Mr. Neymarc’s commercial borrows another tactic from Super Bowl stalwarts — star power — by featuring a celebrity, the actor John Stamos, who has been appearing in a campaign for Dannon Oikos that began in August.

Century 21 is also sprinkling stardust on its spot, created by the Red Tettemer & Partners agency in Philadelphia. The 30-second spot, to run in the third quarter, will use Donald J. Trump and two athletes, Deion Sanders and Apolo Ohno, to demonstrate that Century 21 agents are “Smarter. Bolder. Faster.”

“The Super Bowl comes just before the spring selling season, making it a perfect time to signal our confidence in our agents and in the American real estate market,” said Beverly Thorne, chief marketing officer at Century 21.

Steve Red, president at Red Tettemer, said he was not daunted by the prospect of competing against experienced Super Bowl sponsors because “Century 21 is an American icon, just like those companies.”

“We feel like it’ll be a natural fit,” he added.

The longtime Super Bowl sponsors are not standing pat; they are working on new approaches for their Super Bowl XLVI spots to better compete with the novelty value the first-timers may offer.

For instance, on Wednesday Volkswagen began a teaser campaign on its Web site and YouTube to promote a 60-second spot for the 2012 Beetle, which will reprise the “Star Wars” theme of its Super Bowl spot last year for the Passat.

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Also, E*Trade and its agency, Grey New York, plan to take the popular campaign featuring the E*Trade baby, who first appeared in the 2008 Super Bowl, in a new direction. The Super Bowl commercial will depict the character interacting with people for whom an important life event — the birth of a child — spurs them to think about investing.

The change in the fifth year of the campaign is meant to “take the baby to the next level,” said Nick Utton, chief marketing officer at E*Trade Financial. “It’s critically important to keep the baby fresh and engaging.”

The Super Bowl is “a big financial commitment,” he added. “We agonize over it.”

And “the pressure is intense,” Mr. Utton said, because “you’re competing against 70 different ads, and you want to be among the best.”

But sponsors have an advantage in that “advertising is part of the experience,” he added. “Consumers look forward to the ads as much as the game.”

Another advertiser back for a fifth year in a row, Hyundai, will also refocus its efforts. Two humorous commercials created by Innocean Worldwide Americas, to run in the first and fourth quarters, will play up “the performance side of Hyundai that people don’t know a lot about,” said Steve Shannon, vice president for marketing at Hyundai Motor America.

The spots will use “a little bit of testosterone” to promote two sporty models, the Veloster Turbo and the Genesis Coupe R-Spec, he added, which are aimed at “younger males, first-time car buyers.”

Asked to offer advice to rookie Super Bowl advertisers, Mr. Shannon, replied, laughing, “I’d say, ‘Fasten your seat belts, put on your flak jackets’ and other automotive and military expressions.”

“There is nothing more scrutinized and more measured” than the performance of Super Bowl spots, he added, “and the report cards are instantaneous.”

But the experience is exhilarating, Mr. Shannon said, because “it makes you be sharp.”