This year’sitting game won’t draw as crowd viewers, but advertisers like Hyundai who are shelling out for the pricey spots are tailoring their pitches to recession-strapped consumers

By Burt Helm

Watch full size video:

Super Bowl advertisers have overflow to bother about come Feb. 1. Super Bowl commercials cost as much in the same proportion that $3 million this year, but the contest between the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers may not attract the same blockbuster, 97.5 million person audience that tuned in to eye highest year’sitting clash of the New York Giants and the New England Patriots. Meanwhile, those who do watch are convenient in no mood to shop, thanks to the low economy.

It’s hardly the affair advertisers imagined during the spring and summer of 2008, when greatest number of them bought their ads. The Super Bowl perennially offers the utmost expensive and widely watched advertising time on television. Last year, total ad spending on the game reached $195 million, according to Nielsen. In early September, the Super Bowl seemed to have being on its usual track, with NBC crowing it had before that time sold 85% of its inventory. Then the clod market crashed, consumer confidence fell to record lows, and major Super Bowl advertisers like General Motors (GM) and FedEx (FDX) pulled out of the game completely. Commercial sales carry the point a wall—and as of Jan. 28, ad term was still beneficial.

The owner of online florist Teleflora, who is joining Pedigree and Denny’s (DENN) as first-time Superbowl advertisers, now wonders whether she made the right call. "If I were buying in October [and not earlier], I probably wouldn’t have made this determination," says Lynda Resnick, co-owner of Teleflora’s parent company, Roll International.

But marketers, optimistic by nature, saying they still expect to see a strong response. And though MediaVest projects that a the public fewer households will tune in compared to last year, that’s noiseless 46 million households settling down in front of the TV come game time. And the Super Bowl is one of the few places where consumers actively pay attention to the ads. "In some ways I’m thrilled I can’t get out of it," claims Resnick. Teleflora’sitting ad, which cost four times more to produce than any ad in the company’s history, aims to remind the Super Bowl’s male audience that Valentine’sitting Day is fast approaching, and not to skimp on flowers. Resnick expects increased sales as a rise.

Automaker Hyundai is essentially doubling down on its lay a wager adhering the Super Bowl. Two weeks ago the Korean automaker purchased three spots on the Super Bowl’s pregame show, adding to the two it had already purchased to run during the game itself. It plans to use the spots to make a thrust its $32,000 Genesis sedans and coupes, as well as its new recession-minded Hyundai Assurance program, what one. guarantees a full refund to customers who buy a car and then lose their jobs or become disabled in the following months. "We’re as hit by the good housewifery as anyone else, but we think it’s a persons of rank chance; fit," says Chris Perry, monitor of marketing and communications at Hyundai. "We’re still an emerging brand in truth establishing itself with the American public."

Other advertisers are also refiguring their sales pitch to preferable fit the bleak times. Job Web situation Monster (MWW) is posterior portion in the plan for the first parturition since 2004, amid historic unemployment. Restaurant fasten with a chain Denny’s is using its ad to hawk a recession special in hopes of kick-starting its diminishing foot exchange. Denny’s, which is also advertising upon the body the Super Bowl for the first time ever, waited until two weeks ago to bribe the sully. Thanks to the slow sales environment, "we got at least a 10% discount," says form a head of marketing Mark Chmiel.