January 2007

Super Spinoff
Prof. Bonnie Drewniany introduced an international cast of advertising scholars at the School’s first Ad Bowl Symposium

The Super Bowl is a time capsule. It captures moments in history and reflects changes in society.”

This is the belief of Bonnie Drewniany, advertising professor in the School of Journalism, who directed an academic symposium on the social effect that the Super Bowl and its advertising have on various cultures.

The Super Bowl: Advertising, Audience and American Culture (see Symposium Agenda) was held January 25-27 at the Ifra Newsplex, USC’s multimedia news laboratory. The symposium brought together intellectual minds from across the globe who, like Drewniany, have studied the social changes that a few hours of football and a couple dozen ads have around the world for the rest of the year

The symposium covered the commercialization of the Super Bowl, the cultural impact of the game, its advertising effectiveness, and the differences in cultural perspectives of football around the globe.

“Dr. Kevin Keenan, who teaches at the American University at Cairo, presented a paper on expatriates’ view of the Super Bowl,” Drewniany said. “Jong Woo Jun, a doctoral student from the University of Florida, discussed findings on how 2006 Super Bowl MVP Hines Ward has changed Korean college students’ perception of American football.”

The global interest in the impact of American football’s championship game came as a surprise to Drewniany.

“Perhaps next year we should call the symposium ‘The Super Bowl: Advertising, Audience and Global Culture’,” Drewniany said.

The sessions also featured a sort of “battle of the sexes” as professor Karen Mallia of USC presented her study of the role of women’s views in creating Super Bowl commercials. To counter, Professor Kris Boyle of Texas Tech University presented his findings on the use of masculinity to show the male emphasis in commercials.

Professors Ernie Wiggins and Ken Campbell led a panel session In Living Color: Racial Imagery in Super Bowl Advertising with Phil Jeter of Middle Tennessee State University

Rich O’Dell, general manager of WLTX-TV in Columbia, teamed with professors Augie Grant and Cheryl Harris to talk about the local impact of Super Bowl advertising and the role it plays in local businesses.

During the symposium Drewniany discussed how her Super Bowl advertising course evolved.

Her class will spend the semester studying the Super Bowl commercials and the trends that go along with it from year to year. This all leads up to the ad poll, taking place on Super Bowl Sunday, also at Newsplex.
Read about past Ad Bowls>>

The poll allows the students from the class, faculty and staff to rate the Super Bowl commercials while they are airing during the game. The ads are judged on overall effectiveness, likeability, brand identification and persuasiveness. The winning commercial wins the Cocky Award for best overall Super Bowl ad.

The creative team behind the winning commercial is presented the award and invited to explain how the commercial was made during the college’s annual I-Comm week in April.

Last year, Drewniany added an online component to the voting process, allowing alumni and students the chance to vote for their favorite Super Bowl ad as well. Drewniany plans to expand the online voting this year.

If you’d like to participate in this year’s Ad Bowl, log on to www.jour.sc.edu/superbowl on Super Bowl Sunday (Feb. 4) to vote. Results will be posted after the game.