Who can blame Bridgestone executives if they felt like doing leaping chest bumps in the end zone? This year’s Super Bowl was the most-watched program in the history of American television as the tire maker’s sponsorship of The Who’s halftime mash-up topped 1983’s M*A*S*H finale, drawing more than 106 million viewers.
Retailers and repairers carrying the premium tire line should certainly be happy with the additional customers likely to be coming in due to the huge positive publicity.
Immediate and down-the-road benefits can be seen for miles, according to John Baratta and Phil Pacsi, senior company officials who were at the event.
“People come into the dealers and ask for Bridgestones,” notes Pacsi, vice president of consumer marketing for the U.S. and Canada.
About 70 percent of Bridgestone purchasers say they are fans of the National Football League.
“Having our logo tied to the show was good brand exposure,” explains Baratta, president of replacement tire sales. The Who’s presence and Bridgestone’s role was vigorously promoted during network coverage in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, and two humorous advertisements highlighting tire performance were aired during each half of the game.
Serving also as the NFL’s season-long “official tire,” Bridgestone’s promotional costs are top secret. But the company does glean a substantial return on its investment.
Prior to pursuing sports sponsorships several years ago, “we had a shotgun approach to our marketing,” Baratta recounts. “Our brand exposure was low compared to other tire manufacturers, and we wanted to close that gap. We decided to focus on a primary demographic.”
The NFL’s primary fan base boasts a high headcount of people aged 25 to 54 earning more than $75,000 a year. Regular-season viewership trends toward men, yet “everyone watches the Super Bowl.”
Bridgestone invited 50 tire dealers and their spouses to Florida for this year’s spectacle, says Baratta, “and it’s good to see their responses first-hand. It was unbelievable to watch in person.”
Weighing 10 tons and separated into 25 parts designed to not make divots in the playing field, The Who’s stage was the largest ever assembled for a halftime show. It took 600 people, mostly volunteers, to set it up and tear it down within two tight six-minute time frames.
The segment was produced for the fifth year in a row by Ricky Kirshner, who also put together President Barack Obama’s three-day inaugural celebration. (His dad is rock impresario Don Kirshner, “the man with the golden ear” who had TV audiences going bananas over The Monkees and created ABC’s Friday night In Concert series of the 1970s.)
Baratta, Pacsi and their families joined the band to witness the Super Bowl extravaganza up close and personal, including the final dress rehearsal. “We had the opportunity to meet The Who and introduce the band at a press conference,” Baratta reports.
“They didn’t break anything, they were very nice and they gave us autographed footballs,” he continues, referring to the lineup’s past rowdy reputation for smashing their equipment at the end of each gig and an overall pattern of good-natured mayhem over the years.
The surviving members of the original quartet, Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend – plus the late Keith Moon and John Entwistle – were true pioneers in moving musical boundaries beyond the comparatively staid combos of rock and roll’s earlier years. They brought ultra-loud volume levels to concert halls, thundering power chords and ferocious drumming, flash-powder theatrics and a host of other innovations. Townsend engineered fuzztones by poking pencils through speaker cones, and early versions of synthesizers were put into play.
Pacsi reports that Townsend was nursing a sore shoulder caused by “one too many windmills,” a reference to his wild guitar strumming technique. (The story goes that Townsend adopted his often-imitated slashing style after seeing the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards perform such an onstage maneuver back in 1963. Richards doesn’t recall making the gesture; Townsend turned it into a personal trademark.)
The Who’s catalogue of memorable tunes is extensive and long-lasting – instantly recognizable to Pacsi’s daughters Dominica, 18, and Ellen, 16, as the troupe tore through its 12-minute Super Bowl set. The program, augmented by a spectacular laser light show, kicked off with “Pinball Wizard” and segued into “Baba O’ Riley,” “Who Are You” and “See Me Feel Me,” concluding with a fireworks-emblazoned snippet of “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Instruments and amplifiers remained unscathed as the band triumphantly departed the stage.
And if you’re living to see the Grateful Dead surrounded by a sea of tie-dyed boogiers at the 50 yard line, flying high over the Eagles or pushing for Pink Floyd – don’t bother calling Pacsi or Baratta to lobby for next year’s choice. Bridgestone just sponsors the extravaganza: The acts are selected solely by the NFL, and they perform for free based on a desire for global exposure or a sense of being part of history.
Commercials aired during the Super Bowl broadcasts are often historic in their impact as well. This year’s two Bridgestone spots were especially well-received, according to Baratta. “Humor is always an important thing in Super Bowl ads,” he says, but “first and foremost we want to showcase the performance of our products.”
For more information, visit www.bridgestonetire.com/superbowl and www.thewho.com.
For additional technical details about how this year’s halftime show was produced, go to www.popularmechanics.com/outdoors/sports/4344900.html?nav=RSS20&src=syn&dom=yah_buzz&mag=pop.
