This year’s Superbowl is halfway in the books. Steelers are up 17-7…but that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I’m here to talk about ads! As you may have seen before, we like to talk about Superbowl Ads because it’s a big day for advertising.

Tonight, each 30 second spot will cost 3 million dollars, which is a record level as far as commercials go. As you can see from the title of this post, that’s $100,000 per second. Expensive, to say the least. What we’re wondering, here at Tridea, is whether this is a good investment? A lot can be accomplished with the amount companies are spending on 30 seconds. Of course, nearly 100 million viewers are expected to watch tonight’s broadcast, so some say the cost is justified.

Further, the Superbowl Ads are not only viewed once during the game but are then blogged about all over the internet. So in terms of getting people to see your message, well, it’s tough to beat that exposure. However, I am curious to see how people will react to these companies spending so much money when thousands of jobs are being shed each week.

When all is said and done, NBC will have banked a record $206 million dollars on the Superbowl ads. Could that money have been spent saving people’s jobs? Shoring up an ad buyer’s bottom-line? We’ll have to wait and see.