I found this interesting. The Super Bowl has gotten so big that it has undermined itself. The NFL wants millions from advertisers who want to use the phrase "Super Bowl," so advertisers are just referring to it as the "Big Game." At this time of year, everyone knows what they're talking about.
The NFL says it's a big problem.
Which is fitting: the NFL has created a big trademark and continues to hawk it beyond all reasonable limits (two weeks of hype? give me a break). I'm glad they have a big problem to go with it. WaPo Link.
Because advertisers cannot say "Super Bowl" or show NFL team logos unless they've paid millions of dollars to the NFL, they've learned to weasel around such restrictions, inventing such generic, non-actionable concepts as "the Big Game."
Radio Shack's latest ad circular touts "The Big Game blowout." The theme for Best Buy's promotion is the "Big Game Gear Up." Circuit City promises, "Guaranteed delivery before the Big Game." Each ad carries "action" photos of generic football players, who appear to be members of the Team From Nowhere. Maybe they're the Big Game players.
In advertising parlance, this is "ambush marketing," or piggybacking an event without paying for the official right to do so. The Super Bowl is, of course, the Super Bowl ® of ambush marketing. Dozens of companies, large and small, come right to the legal edge of the NFL's copyrights, without trespassing on them. The game -- the big game -- is so much a part of American culture that it's easy, and highly cost-effective, to suggest "Super Bowl" without saying it.
