The Verge Super Bowl Ad is Smart and Cheap Stunt

Technology News site The Verge landed a nice PR stunt yesterday with the “accidentally leaked” The Verge Super Bowl Ad.

With the trend of more and more smaller companies enter the Super Bowl Ad line-up, it might initially not be that surprising that a Technology News site would take the plunge and buy a $4.5m Super Bowl ad slot. But it turns out it’s just a cheap although smart marketing stunt.

A story on theverge.com (google cache) announced a The Verge Super Bowl Ad. The story was supposedly an premature posting, but it immediately got picked up by the advertising media.

The Verge took the story down and started to clarify what The Verge Super Bowl Ad really is. The 30-second video has been made in-house and will only air in a town called Helena, Montana. The cost to air ad in the local Super Bowl programming of the 30,000 people town costs $700 according to a statement of Jonathan Hunt VP Marketing of Vox Media (owner of The Verge) to Adage. He said: “It’s a nice, thrifty experiment.”

The The Verge Super Bowl Ad “experiment  totally paid off already with coverage on the New York Times, AdAge, Adweek, Slate and Reuters. To top things off, these outlets had to report twice about this or update their original story as initially The Verge Super Bowl 2015 Ad was believed to be real.

The Adweek report even still says: “The regional Super Bowl buy is notable for a new media company like Vox.” What the heck is notable about $700? What is notable is that this stunt was a very smart idea giving The Verge free publicity on major outlets and this all for $700.

Damn. Why didn’t I think of this for I4U News. Watch The Verge “Super Bowl 2015 Ad” below.

I4U News will again bring you full coverage of the Super Bowl 2015 Ads. They are here. Watch the Super Bowl 2015 Ads online.

The Super Bowl 2015 will take place on February 1, 2015 in Arizona. The Super Bowl XLIX game will be played in the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale. NBC is broadcasting the Super Bowl 2015. The Super Bowl 2015 Halftime Show will be performed by Katy Perry. The constantly updated Super Bowl Ads List is tracking all 2015 Super Bowl Ads.

Check out our Super Bowl 2015 Dates, Times and FAQ Guide for everything you need to know about the Super Bowl XLIX. Also find out how to watch the Superbowl online.