Super Bowl Ads for SoBe, Animated Film Aspire to Depth

Two of this year’s buzziest Super Bowl ads are taking the tradition of game-day marketing stunts to new heights: They will air in 3-D. But their success will depend as much on logistics as on the appeal of their messages. PepsiCo’s SoBe Lifewater and the DreamWorks Animation SKG movie “Monsters vs. Aliens” both landed coveted time slots ahead of halftime during the Feb. 1 broadcast.

But, given the complexities of trying to get 125 million pairs of special 3-D glasses into the hands of Super Bowl viewers, the 3-D formats will add millions of dollars to the pricetag for what already is some of TV’s costliest airtime. A lot is riding on the ads’ performance. If viewers gravitate to the 3-D spots, they could give rise to a new home entertainment medium. But if anything goes wrong, “it could actually ruin a lot of the progress and education pertaining to 3-D cinema done by the movie industry in the last couple of years,” says Josiah DePaoli, a Portland, Ore., graphic designer who follows the 3-D industry closely.

When the ads hit the screen, viewers equipped with the special glasses will see DreamWorks monsters and dancing SoBe lizards popping out of the screen.

Getting the color right on each lizard’s spotted skin proved to be particularly challenging, says Peter Arnell of Omnicom’s, Arnell, an ad agency that worked on the SoBe commercial. Mr. Arnell says that’s because “the thing moves, and it’s vibrating, and it’s a challenge to get the same level of intensity” compared with a regular ad.

But the first challenge the two advertisers faced was bankrolling the high-tech ads. The glasses – cardboard frames with one amber and one blue lens – cost a total of about $7 million, say people familiar with the situation.

In the end, chip maker Intel, creator of the 3-D technology used in the commercials as well as in the “Monsters” movie, picked up the tab; its logo appears on the glasses. As for the cost of airtime, the 90-second “Monsters” spot will fetch just over $8 million for General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal.

A spokesman for PepsiCo declined to comment on the cost of the 60-second SoBe spot; the official rate for Super Bowl advertising is $3 million for 30 seconds, though Pepsi, as a repeat customer, probably got a discount.

The soft-drink maker is using its distribution network to get the free glasses for the two ads to around 25,000 SoBe displays at retailers around the country.

To encourage consumers to seek them out, NBC has taken the unusual step of running ads for the ads. It also decided months ago to piggyback on the advertisers’ plans by broadcasting a 3-D episode of its sitcom “Chuck” the day after the Super Bowl. 

But while some fans have snagged their pairs of glasses, others are grousing that they can’t find them. Adding to the confusion, some online commentators insist inaccurately that viewers can use old-fashioned red-and-blue “anaglyph” glasses. The new glasses are based on updated technology from ColorCode 3-D Center ApS of Den-mark. The advertisers say the glasses will be more widely available as the game draws close. Tennessee-based American Paper Optics has been churning them out since October.

Even if the new ads go off without a hitch, viewers shouldn’t expect more of the costly 3D spots anytime soon. “I believe it will be many years before we see main-stream televised advertisements in 3D on a regular basis,” says DreamWorks Chief Executive Jeffrey Katzenber.