Dot Com Memories - Superbowl Adverts

When we spent time in San Francisco in 2000 as part of an Antipodean startup, there was a bizarre moment in the process of obtaining precious venture capital that it became obvious the cheques being written would not be less than tens of millions - it was too tiresome for the VC's to break up their fund in $1-5m chunks spread across a portfolio of smaller startups. Way too much paperwork.

Apart from not wanting to see the majority of the company disappear under $25m of VC equity, we also struggled to imagine what to spend the extra $20m beyond the requirement for $5m to get to profitability the old-fashioned way (customers, profits, you know...).

Anyway, to cut a long story short, the answer was 'Superbowl adverts'! If you haven't heard about them, it's a one-off television commercial that must cost millions to make, whilst the media time alone is in the millions as well. Theory being that several million overweight American consumers have consumed so much beer and fried chicken by half-time in the annual football final, that they cannot move from the couch.

To keep you up to the moment in your latte discussions over strategy, we've co-opted Forbes Magazine's kind offer of a built in video player with the 2010 adverts. They were released to the web in the 4th quarter of the game, acknowledging that 'advert watching' has now become part of the event itself.

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Then again, you might remember the most famous superbowl advert of all time?