Cars.com Unveils Super Bowl Creative

NEW YORK Cars.com said today it would is use its two Super Bowl spots this Sunday to launch a $200 million campaign with a new tagline: “Confidence comes standard.”

The Super Bowl spots, via DDB in Chicago, appearing during the game’s first and third quarters, show auto purchases going smoothly after a visit to Cars.com. The ads end with an obviously pleased consumer telling the salesman that he was glad to avoid “plan B.” In one spot, plan B included using a witch doctor to conjure a fair deal. In the other, it entailed bringing along a bulked-up, tattooed warrior named Glondor to “persuade” the salesman to give him a good deal.

Following the game, Cars.com will run the spots on its Web site, where visitors will also be able to interact with the characters from the ads. Print will support.

“We are confident that our largest-ever national marketing campaign . . . will deliver unprecedented results for our business,” said Mitch Golub, president of Cars.com.

The Chicago-based online car shopping service is owned by a consortium of some of the nation’s largest newspaper companies, including Belo, Gannett, McClatchy, Tribune and The Washington Post.

Cars.com spent $20 million on ads in 2006 and $17 million January-November 2007, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus. Spots during Super Bowl XLII on Fox were going for as much as $2.7 million for 30 seconds.