With 30-second commercials selling for $4.6 – $5 million, it seems that Super Bowl advertising is only for well-heeled corporations. After all, it’s tough for a small company to come up with that kind of money. Intuit QuickBooks felt the pain of small companies and for the second time, ran a competition for small companies to get a spot on the world’s largest advertising stage.
Open to companies with 50 or fewer employees, more than 15,000 small businesses entered the competition. In 2014, the winner was GoldieBlox with engineering toys aimed at girls. This year, the winner is New York coffee company, Death Wish Coffee. Founded in 2012, the company has 12 employees and sells roughly 1,000 pounds of coffee each day. At least that’s the amount pre-Super Bowl. After – it’s bound to be a lot more!
Group Activities and Discussion Questions:
- Discuss the costs involved with advertising, and the risks to companies.
- Bring up Intuit’s competition site: https://www.smallbusinessbiggame.com/contests/sbbg
- How does this competition encourage small businesses?
- Next, show information about Death Wish Coffee: http://www.deathwishcoffee.com/
- What is it that makes this company unique?
- Finally, show the commercial: https://youtu.be/V_3H_Y5QUWw
Source: Associated Press, New York Times, other news sources
