You can't get much cooler in advertising than beer, soda, sports drinks and sandwiches. And not so ironically, those cool products will be the core advertisers during Super Bowl XXXVII Sunday - many aimed at advertisers' dream 21-to-34-year-old demographic.

We've assembled a group of young consumers to rate the commercials during Super Bowl XXXVII Sunday. Find out in Monday's Tempo section if the hype is hip.

Rating the spots will be:

Greg Casto, 22, public relations assistant account executive at Loren Allan Odioso Advertising, downtown.

Darrick Dansby, 30, consultant and executive director, SmartMoney Community Services, Avondale.

Katharine Flocken, 26, North Avondale Montessori teacher, Hyde Park.

Heidi Shepherd, 30, senior account executive for New Horizons Computer Learning Center, O'Bryonville.

Sonia Shepherd, 25, software engineer for Rational Software, Hyde Park.

P&G sits this one out

Procter & Gamble may be the second-largest advertiser in the world, spending $3.5 billion a year - but the Cincinnati giant is spending Super Bowl XXXVII on the bench.

"Sure, the Super Bowl sure has a large audience, but they aren't necessarily within our target audience," Gretchen Muchnick, P&G spokeswoman, said Thursday.

That target audience? Women. "If you look at the target audience (of our brands), the vast majority are targeted at women," Ms. Muchnick said.

No other Greater Cincinnati companies are among Super Bowl advertisers.

And even though many women actually suffer through the football to get to the ads, P&G - second in advertising to General Motors - didn't want to suffer the cost of up to $2.2 million for 30 seconds of airtime.

"It's an expensive endeavor to advertise during the Super Bowl," Ms. Muchnick said.

"We have to consider the best way to reach our customers, and ... the Super Bowl doesn't provide that opportunity."

--Amy Higgins

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