After a week of serious stuff — Monster buys HotJobs and says “We’re No. 1.” CareerBuilder says, “No you’re not.” — Sunday brings us more of the same.
At some point when the Colts and the Saints aren’t going head-to-head, CareerBuilder and Monster will go head-to-head with TV commercials that will set the tone for the great 2010 matchup between these titans of job-boarding.
We’re going to have some fun ourselves with these multi-million dollar branding campaigns. (The ad time alone is running between $2.5 million and $3 million.) A few minutes after the 6:25 EST kickoff on Sunday, our poll goes live asking you to pick the best of the two job board commercials.
I can’t show you those commercials now, because neither company has posted what will air. But here’s a preview.
CareerBuilder began building buzz months ago with a $100,000 contest for the best user-created Super Bowl commercial. After reviewing more than 1,000 submissions, CareerBuilder awarded three of the $100,000 grand prizes. Its ad agency turned them into professionally produced spots and the world began voting for a favorite.
Go ahead and vote. But don’t expect the fan favorite to actually wind up being broadcast. CareerBuilder’s little disclaimer says, “The results of voting will not affect the outcome of CareerBuilder’s choice of commercial to air during the Big Game.”
Still, it could. Here’s the video that got the most votes on You Tube.
Monster, which returned to the big game in 2009 after a six-year hiatus, hasn’t posted its commercial online, yet. It’s got that negative buzz thing going. Get the world jonesing to see it by making them wait.
That hasn’t kept Monster from teasing us, though. The company ran an ad during a playoff game two weeks ago featuring an inept Boogeyman who finds his true calling on Monster.com. The ad was great.
Within days, The New York Times was reporting that Monster’s Super Bowl commercial would feature a beaver. Said beaver, fiddling away on what appears to be a subway platform, then turned up in an online teaser. Another got posted to YouTube on Thursday, which is what’s below.
At the same time, there’s a whole website devoted to beaver-mania called fiddleafriend. According to an incredibly straitlaced business story on Monster’s hometown newspaper, the website will “allow viewers to personalize their own friendly dam-building rodent in music videos and photos.”
Hmmm. That sounds vaguely like the monkey campaign that CareerBuilder ran several years ago. So successful and popular was it, that CareerBuilder still has the Monk-e-Mail online.
We’ll have to wait to see just what Monster has up its sleeve. But heck, I’ll go out on a limb. Based on what I’ve seen, the early edge has to go to Monster.
But don’t listen to me, go here to place a bet on what ad will come out on top. (Isn’t Internet betting illegal?) Check the odds here. And here’s a list of all the ads that will get ranked by USA TODAY.