Ah the Superbowl. A four hour-long commercial marathon with a little-bit of football sprinkled throughout; enjoyed as we stuff ourselves silly with pizza, hot-wings and alcohol. No seriously, I can’t wait. It has brought us countless indelible moments over the decades. Women in gym shorts smashing huge oppressive televisions, talking frogs, Clydesdale horses, drumming monkeys, babies with financial wisdom, and of course, Betty White. Looking to one up all that is Northrop Grumman who may be revealing a military fighter jet. Oh and it will be a stealth craft. Oh and it might have lasers. Suddenly those Budweiser ads feel as flat as that toilet water they call beer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGzhmVmuSTA
Northrop Grumman has been at this longer than most reading this have been alive, but this would be their first foray into this level of consumer advertising. Formed in the wake of a 1994 merger of Northrop, an aircraft manufacturer started in 1939, and Grumman, an aeronautics company founded in 1929 responsible for commercial and military aircraft, Northrop Grumman Corporation is the fifth biggest defense contractor on the planet, with over 68,000 employees and based in Virginia.
Since the merger the company has not produced anything that would shake up the daily news, focusing on smaller contracts and heavy R&D. Independently, however, Northrop and Grumman are responsible for incredible accomplishments like the B-2 Spirit Stealth bomber and the Apollo Lunar Module that landed on the moon six times between 1969 and 1972.
So what’s this new project? Well, in October, 2015 the Pentagon announced that Northrop Grumman had beat out Boeing and Lockheed Martin for a $21.4 billion contract to build the “next-generation long-range strike bomber.” The newest project is meant to replace the 29 year-old B-1, and 51 year-old B-52 bombers. The contract, deemed the biggest handed out by the Pentagon in over 10 years could swell all the way to $80 billion if all 100 planned bombers are purchased by the US government. With all that money they could afford a full 15 seconds worth of commercials during the Super Bowl!
“Our team has the resources in place to execute this important program, and we’re ready to get to work,”
-Wesley G. Bush, Chairman and CEO of Northrop Grumman
The imagery of the ad combined with lines like “Invisible, like the wind” erase any doubt that this new stealth B bomber is in fact what the Northrop Grumman Corporation is planning to reveal this Sunday.
Your move Betty!
[button link=”http://www.northropgrumman.com/Pages/default.aspx” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Northrop Grumman[/button]
