{"id":3309,"date":"2025-02-06T10:46:59","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T16:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capertongillett.com\/blog\/?p=3309"},"modified":"2025-02-06T10:46:59","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T16:46:59","slug":"the-first-super-bowl-commercial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capertongillett.com\/blog\/the-first-super-bowl-commercial\/","title":{"rendered":"The First Super Bowl Commercial (No, Not That One)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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So many things to unpack here.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This Sunday is, of course, Super Bowl XIL, the annual national championship of pro football that more than 40 percent of viewers will be watching for the commercials<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In anticipation of the Big Game, plenty of ad people<\/a> are talking<\/a> about the commercials<\/a>, and following the game, basically all people will be talking about the commercials, but I\u2019m not here to talk about the commercials. I\u2019m here to talk about one<\/em> commercial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, many people, if asked what they\u2019d consider to be the first Super Bowl commercial, would name Ridley Scott\u2019s iconic \u201c1984\u201d ad for Apple<\/a>. And that can comfortably be called the first Super Bowl ad of the modern age. It laid the path for the parade of high-concept, high-production value, super-high-budget ads that would become a beloved part of the Super Bowl viewing experience. You could also name the first big-budget ad with celebrity endorsers, which could arguably be the 1973 Noxzema spot that paired Joe Namath and Farrah Fawcett<\/a> in an ad so innuendo-laden you\u2019d feel uncomfortable watching it with your parents in the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we\u2019re talking the first<\/em> first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

January 15, 1967.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Super Bowl I.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Super Bowl of Non-Super Bowl Ads<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Technically, it wasn\u2019t Super Bowl I. Back then, it was just the AFL-NFL World Championship Game \u2014 it wouldn\u2019t gain the \u201cSuper\u201d title until 1969. Like modern-day Super Bowl games, Super Bowl I featured the Kansas City Chiefs, this time playing the Green Bay Packers. Because it wasn\u2019t yet Super, it was basically treated as a game like any other game, albeit broadcast on both CBS and NBC, each with their own announcers, because at the time CBS had the right to NFL games and NBC had the rights to AFL games. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Fun fact: Both networks later wiped and taped over their broadcast tapes, \u2018cause tape was expensive, and the only known recording is from an engineer in Scranton, Pennsylvania, named Martin Haupt, who had the technology to record it before VCRs were invented. He missed the halftime show and part of the third quarter, so, like, thanks a heap, Marty.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, brands weren\u2019t making specific Super Bowl ads yet, on account of there not being a Super Bowl, so advertisers just aired whatever they currently had in rotation. A 30-second ad spot ran $37,500<\/a> (nearly $360,000 in Today Dollars, but still nowhere close to the $4.5 million that will be doled out for each ad this coming Sunday). And the ads were\u2026 of the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will caveat that I wasn\u2019t able to find record of what precisely the first<\/em> Super Bowl commercial was, as in the one that aired in the first ad break after kickoff or whatever. It might have been this absolute banger from Tang<\/a>. But I\u2019m going to give pride of place to this Goodyear ad, because a) a recording of it exists, and b) it\u2019s probably the 1967est ad not to include cigarettes or alcohol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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