Pepsi passes on Super Bowl

MILWAUKEE - Pepsi's Super Bowl streak is over after a 23-year run.

Ads for the drinks won't appear in next year's Super Bowl on CBS. Instead, the company plans to shift ad dollars to a new marketing effort that's mostly online.

Pepsi was one of the biggest advertisers in last year's game and has advertised every year since 1987. Frito-Lay, a unit of parent company PepsiCo Inc., will still have Super Bowl commercials this year.

The company, which is based in Purchase, N.Y., spent $33 million advertising products like Pepsi, Gatorade, and Cheetos last year during the Super Bowl, according to TNS Media Intelligence, $15 million of it on Pepsi alone. Ad time last year for the NFL championship game cost about $3 million for 30 seconds, on average.

Those prices may have dipped to as low as $2.5 million per 30 seconds this year, according to Jon Swallen, senior vice president of research for TNS. Final figures won't be known until after the game, which takes place Feb. 7 and airs on CBS. The network said last week it has sold about 90 percent of the game's commercial time.

Shipper FedEx also said yester day that it would not advertise again in the Super Bowl due to costs, the same reason the company gave last year for sitting it out.

Pepsi had been a major advertiser during the Super Bowl. According to TNS, the company spent $142.8 million on the 10 Super Bowl ads from 1999 to 2008, second only to Anheuser-Busch, which spent $216 million. The brewer of Bud Light confirmed yesterday that it would have 5 minutes worth of advertising in the 2010 Super Bowl.