Stephen Colbert to Feature in Two Super Bowl Ads

This is the Super Bowl where ads may offer a bit less of the same — and a bit more of the unexpected.

As the price of ad time continues to escalate, advertisers continue to seek new ways — and new reasons — to stand out or even surprise. At a record $4 million per 30-second slot, “it’s the most expensive ad time on television by a wide margin,” says Jon Swallen, chief research officer at Kantar Media.

The Super Bowl, he notes, “marches to a very different beat than the rest of the TV business.” And so, too, must the advertisers who want to stand out during the February 2nd broadcast on Fox, which is sold out of ad time.

Here are some thing they are doing differently for 2014:

Wonderful Pistachios, meanwhile, has dropped YouTube phenom Psy, and will feature funny man Stephen Colbert in two 15-second Super Bowl commercials. Why the change? “We wanted to deepen the enthusiasm beyond the Super Bowl with talent that resonates with our target (buyers) over the full year,” says Marc Seguin, marketing head at brand owner Paramount Farms.

Source: USA Today.