The Super Bowl remains the top of the mountain in terms of TV advertising, but also remains inaccessible to smaller companies that can’t afford the multi-million-dollar price tag. Intuit has launched a campaign that will give one small business a shot at the big game.
The company, which makes financial and tax prep software such as Quicken and TurboTax, introduced the effort on Wednesday, casting it as an effort to help small businesses share their stories and promising one winner a national 30-second TV spot in the third quarter of the Super Bowl, which will air on Fox on Feb. 2.
One 30-second spot in last year’s Super Bowl on CBS cost around $3.8 million.
The Intuit effort, called “Small Business Big Game,” which also offer other prizes such as online ad credits and business software, according to the company. It will use Fox NFL Sunday cohost Jimmy Johnson, a two-time Super Bowl champion, to help promote the campaign.
Businesses will enter by submitting their company stories for online voting from the public. Intuit employees will then narrow the top 20 to a final four, which receive TV advertising for their business. The public will select the ultimate winner of the Super Bowl time, which Intuit said it will buy as a national spot directly from Fox.
This story originally appeared in Advertising Age.
