- Steve McClellan, Adweek

A day after remaining silent on the issue, NBC said today it would not allow a spot in the upcoming Super Bowl with multiple advertisers.

Yesterday, ad agency Cesario Migliozzi, Los Angeles, said it was discussing a plan with the network in which the firm would pool eight advertisers to jointly buy at least one of the remaining Super Bowl spots.  

Throughout the day yesterday, the network declined to comment on the proposal, which would have been a first, according to CM's research.

But today, Seth Winter, svp, sports and Olympics sales at the network, said the co-op spot would not be allowed. "We've not given them permission and there is no way we are going to," Winter said.

Furthermore, an NBC rep said it was never in the cards, although CM partner Michael Migliozzi strongly denies that, saying that he has been discussing the co-op proposal with NBC Sports sales rep Corbin Snellerman for two weeks. "We were cheerleaded by the L.A. office with regards to what we were trying to do," said Migliozzi. Snellerman didn't return calls.

Migliozzi said today that Snellerman told him last night that the proposal was "causing some grief with some of their current NBC clients," and that may be the reason the plan was killed by NBC today. "It's dead," reinforced an NBC rep, who insisted that the agency was never upfront about the exact plan until it went public yesterday.

The agency had planned to charge each of the eight advertisers $395,000 to participate. That would cover the $3 million media buy and leave $160,000 to produce creative. (Some Super Bowl advertisers spend several times that amount to create original ads for the game.)

For their money, clients would have their logos appear throughout the 30-second spot and be listed on a special Web site, superbowlglory.com, that would remain online for a year. Viral videos for each client were also planned.
 
Among others, the agency said it had talked to marketers such as Virgin Mobile, Facebook, Smart Cars, Puma, Vespa and the Hard Rock Cafe about the idea.

This story updates and replaces an item posted earlier today with NBC's response.