- Steve McClellan, Adweek

NEW YORK Cars.com has purchased a 60-second spot that will air Feb. 1 in the second quarter of the 2009 Super Bowl on NBC, the client confirmed today.

The commercial will mark the second consecutive Super Bowl ad appearance for the firm and kick off a projected $200 million marketing campaign that will run through most of next year. (The company spent the same amount last year, calling the budget a record-high marketing investment.)

"We made significant strides in moving our brand forward through our Super Bowl ads and our overall marketing campaign in 2008," said Mitch Golub, president of Cars.com, in a statement. "We want to keep that momentum moving forward in 2009, and advertising on the Super Bowl gives Cars.com a way to kick off that campaign in a big way."

The car-shopping site said it would release the creative close to game time -- but said the new work would feature "a twist" on last year's car-shopping confidence campaign.

Cars.com in '09 will undertake a national, integrated media campaign backed by the company's affiliate network, which includes hundreds of leading newspapers, TV stations and their Web sites. 

The company was launched in 1998 by a consortium of media firms including Belo, Gannett, The McClatchy Co., Tribune Co., and the Washington Post Co.

NBC has already sold most of the available spots in the upcoming game.

As of early-September, 85 percent of the 60 or so available spots had been sold, including a dozen 30-second spots for a premium price of $3 million each. The network said the remaining 10 spots would also carry a price tag of at least $3 million.