---
title: "About That Census 2010 Super Bowl Ad"
description: "The Census Bureau's $2.5 million purchase of a 30-second ad during the third quarter of Sunday's televised Super Bowl is making news today."
date: "2010-02-04"
authors:
  - name: "D’Vera Cohn"
    job_title: "Former Senior Writer/Editor"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/dvera-cohn/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2010/02/04/about-that-census-2010-super-bowl-ad/"
---

# About That Census 2010 Super Bowl Ad

The Census Bureau's $2.5 million purchase of a 30-second ad during the third quarter of Sunday's televised Super Bowl is making news today, following [criticism](http://www.foxnews.com/story/2010/02/04/straight-talk-with-sen-john-mccain-uncut-and-on-record/) from U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who called the buy "out of touch with what's going on in the real world" where Americans are hurting because of the poor economy.

The Census Bureau [defended](http://www.census.gov/2010census/about/) the ad, saying its own research indicates that few Americans are aware the 2010 Census is coming in March, and the Super Bowl ads are a much-talked-about means of building that awareness.

By midday, McCain's criticism, and the Census Bureau's defense, had generated items in [The Washington Post](http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2010/02/census_bureau_defends_super_bo.html?hpid=news-col-blog), [The Hill](http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/79761-mccain-chides-census-bureau-for-competing-with-doritos-during-super-bowl) blog, as well as [Fox News](http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/03/taxpayers-fork-million-single-census-ad-super-bowl/) (where McCain raised his objections to the ad yesterday).

A recent Pew Research Center [survey about census awareness](https://www.pewresearch.org/2010/01/20/most-view-census-positively-but-some-have-doubts/) found that most Americans know something about the census and think positively of it, but that knowledge and positive attitudes are lower among some key sub-groups.

As to whether census advertising is effective, an [evaluation](http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10907) of the 2000 Census by the National Research Council, cited in [yesterday's posting](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2010/02/03/census-advertising-does-it-work/), said that linking ads to individual behavior is "typically very difficult in market research," but it was "likely" that advertising and other outreach boosted participation, in part by creating a wave of good feeling about the national headcount.