Superbowl Advertising

I am not sure which company will win the battle of the Superbowl commercials this year but one thing is certain. None of these companies would have been a good investment over the last twelve months. The candlestick line represents the Dow benchmark. The jagged, colored lines represents the companies spending big dollars advertising during the big game.



Even Dreamworks (Stock Symbol: DWA), the least of the losers represented by the top-most squiggly line, would have been a rocky ride after the first few months of the year. The biggest loser was E-trade even though that commercial with the baby trader is a keeper.

The list from top to bottom includes Dreamworks, Pepsi, Coke, Disney, Toyota, Dennys, Sony, GE, Monster.com, and E-Trade.

The biggest winner may be Miller, who is using one second of ad space. Cost effective and attention grabbing too. Just don't blink. Call this the retro year...3D ads and subliminals to boot. Weren't the 50's bull market years?

In a normal year, I would create a Superbowl Commercial portfolio and track how each company performs over the year, but due to the fact that I am almost completely in cash with no intention of buying and holding anything ( except the CMI), I'll pass on that idea for now. Of course, any company that is willing to spend several million dollars for a 30 second spot might seem like a sound investment although I'd be willing to bet that there are several exceptions to that rule over the years. Remember the dot-com era?

Last December, I had listed some of the top companies based on results from The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Interestingly enough, when cross-referencing these lists, two companies are common to both: Coke (Stock Symbol: KO), and Toyota (Stock Symbol: TM).