{"id":26209,"date":"2021-02-16T14:24:13","date_gmt":"2021-02-16T19:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?p=26209"},"modified":"2021-02-16T14:24:13","modified_gmt":"2021-02-16T19:24:13","slug":"10-companies-that-advertised-during-bradys-first-super-bowl-in-2002-and-the-story-they-tell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2021\/02\/16\/10-companies-that-advertised-during-bradys-first-super-bowl-in-2002-and-the-story-they-tell\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Companies That Advertised During Brady\u2019s First Super Bowl in 2002 (and the Story They Tell)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?attachment_id=26210\" class=\"attachment wp-att-26210\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/super-bowl-commercials_2002_tom-brady_blockbuster-1024x576-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"802\" height=\"451\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-26210\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Super Bowl 55 is now history. In some ways, it was a familiar scene. After 60 minutes of play, Tom Brady once again hoisted the Lombardi Trophy, leading the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a 31-9 drubbing of the Kansas City Chiefs.<\/p>\n<p>It was Brady\u2019s seventh Super Bowl win and his fifth Super Bowl MVP award. Of course, #12 was wearing a different uniform this time. But that wasn\u2019t the only thing that changed.<\/p>\n<p>According to Twitter, Super Bowl commercials have also changed a lot. There was a lot of grumbling about that, but c&#8217;mon\u2014companies are shelling out $5.5 million for just 30 seconds of air time. That\u2019s more than double <a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/superbowl-ads.com\/cost-of-super-bowl-advertising-breakdown-by-year\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">the $2.2 million<\/a> companies were paying when Brady won his first Super Bowl in 2002. If you\u2019re paying that much, you can say whatever you want, as far as I\u2019m concerned.<\/p>\n<div style=\"display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;\"><iframe id=\"twitter-widget-0\" class=\"\" style=\"position: static; visibility: visible; width: 550px; height: 218px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;\" title=\"Twitter Tweet\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=feeonline&amp;dnt=false&amp;embedId=twitter-widget-0&amp;frame=false&amp;hideCard=false&amp;hideThread=false&amp;id=1358768966932574214&amp;lang=en&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Ffee.org%2Farticles%2F10-companies-that-advertised-during-brady-s-first-super-bowl-and-the-story-they-tell%2F&amp;siteScreenName=feeonline&amp;theme=light&amp;widgetsVersion=889aa01%3A1612811843556&amp;width=550px\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-tweet-id=\"1358768966932574214\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;\"><iframe id=\"twitter-widget-1\" class=\"\" style=\"position: static; visibility: visible; width: 550px; height: 170px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;\" title=\"Twitter Tweet\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=feeonline&amp;dnt=false&amp;embedId=twitter-widget-1&amp;frame=false&amp;hideCard=false&amp;hideThread=false&amp;id=1358605192447610882&amp;lang=en&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Ffee.org%2Farticles%2F10-companies-that-advertised-during-brady-s-first-super-bowl-and-the-story-they-tell%2F&amp;siteScreenName=feeonline&amp;theme=light&amp;widgetsVersion=889aa01%3A1612811843556&amp;width=550px\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-tweet-id=\"1358605192447610882\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n<p>In any event, there was a bigger and better lesson on Super Bowl commercials. As Jon Erlichman, anchor of BNN Bloomberg&#8217;s morning program \u201cThe Open,\u201d observed, Tom Brady\u2019s Super Bowl success has outlasted many titans of corporate America.<\/p>\n<p>Consider some of the names that bought Super Bowl airtime during Brady\u2019s first rodeo in January 2002: AOL, Blockbuster, Radio Shack, Circuit City, CompUSA, Sears, Yahoo, VoiceStream Wireless, and Gateway Computers.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"link-0\">The Titans of Yesterday<\/h2>\n<p>Notice a theme? That list features some companies we saw in <em>Captain Marvel<\/em>, the 2019 hit movie that <a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2019\/03\/07\/how-captain-marvel-nails-90s-nostalgia-in-a-blockbuster-video-store\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">nailed 90s nostalgia<\/a> and reminded us how fast the world had changed. Like when Blockbuster Video stores were still a thing.<\/p>\n<p>For those who may not recall, when Brady was winning his first Super Bowl, Blockbuster was approaching its peak. In 2004, it <a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Blockbuster_LLC\" rel=\"nofollow\">operated<\/a> 9,094 stores and employed some 84,300 people. The company was pulling in <a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/rise-and-fall-of-blockbuster#despite-the-rise-of-netflix-and-redbox-blockbuster-was-at-its-peak-in-2004-10\" rel=\"nofollow\">$6 billion in revenue<\/a> annually and looked invincible. Today, <a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/commercialobserver.com\/2020\/04\/the-last-blockbuster-on-earth-is-still-open\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">a single Blockbuster store remains open<\/a>\u2014in the world.<\/p>\n<p>Remember RadioShack? Once upon a time, it seemed as if you could find one of their brick-and-mortar stores in every corner of the USA. Not anymore. In 2015, RadioShack filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, in large part <em>because <\/em>of those many store locations, which <a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/articles\/investing\/081315\/5-reasons-why-radioshack-went-out-business.asp\" rel=\"nofollow\">cannibalized revenues<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Sears, one of the historic giants of retail, managed to make it to 2018 before announcing its bankruptcy. Its stores continue to close so fast, it\u2019s hard to tell how many remain in operation. (The best guess is <a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/warrenshoulberg\/2021\/01\/05\/how-many-sears-and-kmarts-will-be-left-by-2021s-end\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">about 60<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>In 2009, Circuit City <a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20090227033519\/http:\/\/www.circuitcity.com\/closed.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">announced<\/a> it was going out of business after 60 years of serving customers. Hotjobs was acquired by Yahoo shortly after Brady beat the Rams in Super Bowl 36, but the company <a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/8-dot-com-super-bowl-advertisers-that-no-longer-exist-2011-2\" rel=\"nofollow\">went defunct<\/a> in 2011.<\/p>\n<p>AOL and Yahoo both still exist, of course, but they were gobbled up by Verizon in 2015 ($4.4 billion) and 2017 ($4.5 billion), respectively\u2014though their parent company indicated in a 2018 SEC filing that both of the communications giants are <a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/tech\/tech-news\/verizon-signals-its-yahoo-aol-divisions-are-almost-worthless-n946846\" rel=\"nofollow\">virtually worthless<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As for CompUSA, VoiceStream Wireless, and Gateway Computers, there\u2019s a good chance you don\u2019t even remember them. But not too long ago, all these companies were on top, buying millions of dollars of airtime in an effort to stay there.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"link-1\">Blockbuster, Netflix, and Schumpeterian Creative Destruction<\/h2>\n<p>Some might see the collapse of Blockbuster, Sears and company as a sign of something terribly wrong with our economic system. After all, Blockbuster alone paid rent at tens of thousands of properties and employed tens of thousands of workers. Sears was the largest American retailer (by far) for decades.<\/p>\n<p>Watching the companies we once shopped at flounder and fail can be surprising, jarring even. But a closer look shows this cycle is not unusual and is actually the sign of a healthy market economy, not a dysfunctional one. What may seem like pure destruction actually clears the way for economic innovation and renewal. \u201cCreative destruction\u201d is how the economist Joseph Schumpeter (1880-1950) characterized business failure in a free market.<\/p>\n<p>As economist Mark Perry <a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aei.org\/carpe-diem\/only-52-us-companies-have-been-on-the-fortune-500-since-1955-thanks-to-the-creative-destruction-that-fuels-economic-prosperity\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">points out<\/a>, companies on top have a very hard time staying on top. Perry, a scholar at the American Enterprise institute and a professor of economics at the University of Michigan\u2019s Flint campus, compared the 1955 Fortune 500 companies to the 2019 Fortune 500. He found that just 52 were still on the list six decades later.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe fact that nearly nine of every 10 Fortune 500 companies in 1955 are gone, merged, reorganized, or contracted demonstrates that there\u2019s been a lot of market disruption, churning, and Schumpeterian creative destruction over the last six decades,\u201d Perry wrote. \u201cIt\u2019s reasonable to assume that when the Fortune 500 list is released 60 years from now in 2079, almost all of today\u2019s Fortune 500 companies will no longer exist as currently configured, having been replaced by new companies in new, emerging industries, and for that we should be extremely thankful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Perry is right. As he explains, the rise and fall of companies is a positive sign of a dynamic, vibrant, and innovative market economy driven by incentives to better serve consumers. The fact that turnover is increasing in speed because of instantaneous communication and a hyper-competitive global economy is a good thing, not something to be feared.<\/p>\n<p>Take Blockbuster. I have nothing against Blockbuster. I rented lots of movies from them. They had a great selection and their prices were reasonable (usually $1 or $2). But Blockbuster also had problems, not the least of which was a business model built on slapping gobs of late fees on customers. (In fact, $800 million worth annually.)<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear: both;\">\n<div id=\"om-fqmeg7lcejd7fy5oro5r-holder\">\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"om-lxkcubhhqwmdm0lkjkbp-holder\">\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Customers hate late fees. A big fat late fee was what inspired entrepreneur Reed Hastings to team up with coworker Marc Randolph to launch Netflix, the company that would eventually dethrone Blockbuster.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I had a big late fee for <em>Apollo 13<\/em>. It was six weeks late and I owed the video store $40. I had misplaced the cassette. It was all my fault,\u201d Hastings <a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=fKmQBQAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PT20&amp;lpg=PT20&amp;dq=I+had+a+big+late+fee+for+Apollo+13.+It+was+six+weeks+late+and+I+owed+the+video+store+$40.+I+had+misplaced+the+cassette.&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=wfq7TFHfcD&amp;sig=ACfU3U0LgPVTfeq8E-SzUXHBgXNKdqTMKg&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwiN3uGBnNvuAhVVCM0KHUlnCIoQ6AEwAHoECAUQAg\" rel=\"nofollow\">said<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>At $40, Hastings could have bought several copies of <em>Apollo 13<\/em>. Instead, he had little choice but to return his single video and pay the fee. During a workout later, he realized gyms have a better business model.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou could pay $30 or $40 a month and work out as little or as much as you wanted,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n<p>Sensing an opportunity, Hastings created Netflix, a subscription-based rental service that allowed users to go online and select the movies they wanted to watch, which would then be mailed to them. Customers could keep movies as long as they wanted, getting new movies once the others were returned. No late fees. Watch as many movies in a month (or as few) as you want, so long as you can get them mailed quickly.<\/p>\n<p>Sounds simple, right? Well, it wasn\u2019t. Netflix ran into all kinds of problems, as Sean Malone points out in this wonderful <a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=yfjBUeF1avk\" rel=\"nofollow\">Out of Frame episode<\/a>. That\u2019s why Hastings <a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/www.inc.com\/minda-zetlin\/netflix-blockbuster-meeting-marc-randolph-reed-hastings-john-antioco.html\">tried to sell Netflix<\/a> to Blockbuster for $50 million, only to be rebuffed. (Big mistake, Blockbuster. Big mistake.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yfjBUeF1avk\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But in the end, Netflix won because it offered customers a superior product. Today we stream content at the click of a button and have more options than we can possibly watch. This did not happen by accident.<\/p>\n<p>And when you think about it: isn\u2019t it for the best? However wistful we feel when we see a Blockbuster store in a retro movie and reminisce about movie night stops at Blockbuster to pick up some microwave popcorn and the latest Keanu flick, most of us wouldn\u2019t bring back the old days (no streaming, lots of late fees, etc), even if we could.<\/p>\n<p>Blockbuster\u2019s fall and Netflix\u2019s rise is an example of the \u201cSchumpeterian creative destruction\u201d Perry alluded to. The destruction of yesterday\u2019s Blockbuster meant the creation of today\u2019s Netflix, Redbox, Disney+, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Schumpeter understood that creative destruction is not a sign of expiration but of life. It\u2019s not the sign of a dying economy but a vibrant one that is moving ever forward.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe essential point to grasp is that in dealing with capitalism we are dealing with an evolutionary process,\u201d Schumpeter wrote in the seminal work <em><a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3oZu3qX\" rel=\"nofollow\">Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy<\/a><\/em>. \u201cCapitalism, then, is by its nature a form or method of economic change and not only never is but never can be stationary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The simple truth is that the vast majority of companies will never get on top, and the few that do ascend to those heights are unlikely to stay there very long. Just like NFL quarterbacks.<\/p>\n<p>Is it a little sad when a star like Tom Brady finally retires or stores like Sears and Blockbuster go under? Sure. But that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not perfectly natural, healthy, and good.<\/p>\n<p>You can bet your last dollar that Brady will eventually be out of an NFL job, replaced by the next crop of young superstar quarterbacks. Just like you can bet that many of those companies who coughed up $5.5 million for 30-seconds airtime Sunday night will soon find themselves in the same situation as RadioShack.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s important to remember is that\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n<p>As long as there is competition in a market economy, some will fall as others rise. Everything has a shelf life. Even Tom Brady.<\/p>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" defer=\"\" async=\"\"><\/script>\n<div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/jonmiltimore2.jpg\" alt=\"Jon Miltimore\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<h5><a class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" href=\"http:\/\/fee.org\/people\/jon-miltimore\/\"><br \/>\nJon Miltimore<br \/>\n<\/a><\/h5>\n<p>Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing\/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune.<\/p>\n<p>Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"font-style: italic;\">This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/10-companies-that-advertised-during-brady-s-first-super-bowl-and-the-story-they-tell\/\">original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Super Bowl 55 is now history. In some ways, it was a familiar scene. After 60 minutes of play, Tom Brady once again hoisted the Lombardi Trophy, leading the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a 31-9 drubbing of the Kansas City Chiefs. It was Brady\u2019s seventh Super Bowl win and his fifth Super Bowl MVP award. Of course, #12 was wearing a different uniform this time. But that wasn\u2019t the only thing that changed. According to Twitter, Super Bowl commercials have also changed a lot. There was a lot of grumbling about that, but c&#8217;mon\u2014companies are shelling out $5.5 million for just 30 seconds of air time. That\u2019s more than double the $2.2 million companies were paying when Brady won his first Super Bowl in 2002. If you\u2019re paying that much, you can say whatever you want, as far as I\u2019m concerned. In any event, there was a bigger and better lesson on Super Bowl commercials. As Jon Erlichman, anchor of BNN Bloomberg&#8217;s morning program \u201cThe Open,\u201d observed, Tom Brady\u2019s Super Bowl success has outlasted many titans of corporate America. Consider some of the names that bought Super Bowl airtime during Brady\u2019s first rodeo in January 2002: AOL, Blockbuster, Radio Shack, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2818,622,3727],"class_list":["post-26209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-politics","tag-competition","tag-economics","tag-super-bowl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}