Super Bowl commercial

Last year’s Super Bowl drew 111 million viewers. It’s the biggest television ratings draw of the year — every year. And every year there is a cottage industry of commentators not only for the football, but also for the advertising. Wouldn’t it be nice if those ads were public service announcements, rather than cheap beer and snack foods? In February 2017, for example, more ads than usual tended toward socially conscious messaging, even while they hawked consumer goods.

Today, I backed #AirMyGlobalWarmingAd on Kickstarter. This is an attempt to crowdsource the $5.5 million it would take to buy a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl in two months — to raise awareness about climate change. The campaign was started by a fellow Climate Reality Leader and he’s lined up an agency to create the spot pro bono. The $5.5 million target will be a stretch, however, and I’m not sure he’ll get there. The fact that he’s not providing any substantive perks (not even a t-shirt) really works against him.