Super Bowl ad or 37,000 goats (a cost benefit analysis)

Ok. I work in advertising and I have to admit that the majority of advertising I see on TV today is a complete waste. ESPECIALLY some of those bad Super Bowl ads yesterday. There were a few good ones but most of them were struggling. And each 30 second commercial during the big game this year cost 2.6 million dollars. That’s just the air-time; it doesn’t include the cost of actually producing the ad.

Anyway, I thought it would be cool to list some other things that could have been purchased during those 30 seconds.

For the 2.6 million dollars spent every 30 seconds, one of the following things could have happened…

• 289,000 hungry babies could have been fed for a week
• 75,000 orphans could have had meals, lodging, healthcare and education for a month
• 37,000 families could have had their very own goat (My personal favorite)
• 13,000 children in Africa could have had reconstructive surgery
• 13,000 families could have had an emergency shelter to help protect them from the cold, wind and rain
• 325 schools could have been built for impoverished children
• 174 churches could have been built in Sudan

Not that ad money would be spent in this way but it’s just an interesting perspective to think about what changes might have happened in this world and how many people could have been impacted if say godaddy.com had run two commercials instead of three.