How to NOT spend $2.5 MILLION on a Super Bowl Ad ..

.. and get lots of exposure anyway. Here’s how ManCrunch (a gay men’s dating site) did it:

• Produce a slightly shiny, slightly kitschy, slightly provocative commercial about subject content that makes the network uncomfortable.
• Offer the going rate of $2.5 million for your spot in the commercial line-up.
• Get rejected: Not shiny enough? Too provocative? Whatever.
• Let the story hit the interwebs.

Just look at all the money they saved. But what did they get?

• Publicity. Lots of it. Cannot swing a dead cat on the video sites without running across this. Note that we’ve seen guys kiss on super bowl commercials before .. remember the Snickers ad from 2007?
• Impressions. Lots of them, and well before the game. 207,000 on YouTube so far and thousands more scattered around the video sites.
• News. Bing gives us these answers to the search.

Folks get nuts about these commercials. They talk about them for weeks prior, ensure they’re in their seats at the appropriate (and publicized time) to see them during the game and then go to aggregation sites to watch the line-up of what they’ve missed. That rate them, trash them, discuss them at the water cooler and espresso bars for days.

It’s bigger than this though. Is this a hoax, or very clever marketing? I’m guessing the latter, and I applaud the chaps who put it together.

We’ve seen eHarmony and Match.com ads on the television .. these sites position themselves more as ‘relationship’ (versus ‘hookup’) sites. I cannot tell from the limited information thus far, where ManCrunch site on that scale.

I suspect we’ll all know more in the coming weeks. Will be fun to watch. Thanks to Jessi for the referral.