Napster's Super Bowl ad voted the biggest loser

Cat puts fans to sleep

By Ashlee Vance in Chicago • Get more from this author

Posted in Bootnotes, 8th February 2005 03:33 GMT

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Napster has been awarded the title of Super Bore by viewers ranking the advertisements from last night's football championship.

Napster's ad - which claimed it costs $10,000 to fill Apple's iPod with music and just $14.95 a month to rent as much music as possible via Napster's new To Go service - placed last in a survey taken by USA Today. Companies paid close to $2.4m for a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl. Napster's commercial trailed all 54 other spots, according to the people surveyed by the newspaper.

Napster last week vowed to spend $30m to promote its To Go service. This package has people paying $14.95 per month to download as much music as they like to their computer or portable device. The customers, however, don't receive permanent downloads for this subscription - only the romantically named tethered downloads that disappear if you stop paying the monthly fee.

Consumers are apparently a bit smarter than Napster imagined. They didn't fall for the $10,000 fill-your-iPod claim. Most people fill their digital music players with tracks taken from their existing CD collection and from MP3s already on their computer. An iPod can be filled for less than $5, if you have the right friends.

Anheuser-Busch was voted to have the best and third best ads with Ameriquest Mortgage taking the second spot. CareerBuilder.com led the tech companies with an impressive showing - it grabbed the fourth, fifth and sixth slots.

The full rankings and ads are available here. ®