This weekend there will be about 20 people at Jobacle HQ watching the Super Bowl. We’ll all be chowing down on chicken wings and pulled pork sliders, shushing each other as the first commercials start to roll.
At an average cost of $2.6M for 30 seconds, everyone from Anheuser-Busch to Walt Disney will be jockeying for our attention.
We’ll all muse over the cost of these ads, a figure, which quite honestly, is incomprehensible to me and my middle-class friends.
The out-of-work construction worker will laugh; the unemployed teacher might chuckle. And my friend’s dad, who’s worked in a union for 37 years, will be sipping beers for the first time as a member of the pink-slip brigade.
With 1 out of every 10 Americans unemployed, am I the only one sick over the Super Bowl ad orgy?
Let’s do some quickie math.
In the time you watch Danica Patrick whore herself out for Web hosting, 43 people could have been added to payroll at $40,000 a year each – we’ll even toss in $20,000 for medical coverage!
So at a total employee cost of $60,000 per worker, and around 70 ads planned to run during the big game, over 3,000 people could be back at work.
I realize the counter-argument is that the success spawned by these ads will yield more jobs in the future. The problem is, we need jobs NOW!
Much like you, I’ll be a hypocrite. I’ll tune into a game that I really don’t care about just so I can be in the loop at the watercooler on Monday.
Heck, maybe this year I’ll even win the office pool.
Check back after the game for our take on the Super Bowl ads.
P.S. Complaining about Super Bowl ads is nothing new for Jobacle. Check out these related stories:
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