NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Apparel giant Phillips-Van Heusen has snapped up its first Super Bowl airtime, purchasing of two 30-second spots for its Izod and Van Heusen brands.

The company hopes the spots will help it gain share of voice with its sports-loving target audience during a time when none of its competitors clutter the ad space. "Relative to our competition, we'll be making noise when they're not," said Mike Kelly, Phillips-Van Heusen exec VP-marketing.

The two spots are a significant investment for the men's fashion brand. The company spent $2 million in measured media spending in 2005, and only $700,000 in January through September 2006, according to TNS Media Intelligence. The highest-priced Super Bowl spots are selling for $2.6 million for 30 seconds of screen time.

The ads were created in-house and produced by HomeNYC.

Large-scale campaign
The Super Bowl spot for Van Heusen kicks off a new large-scale TV, cinema and print campaign for the brand known for its somewhat stodgy dress shirts as the company seeks to become a lifestyle brand for the modern-day man.

Awareness will be key, Mr. Kelly said, as research showed "customers said 'We love your shirts and can accept that you're expanding your brand across the store; we're just not aware of it.'" The spot, to air during the third quarter of the game, uses computer-generated technology to magically shift a man's outfits to fit the various events of a perfect day, a feat achieved, of course, because he chose Van Heusen.

The fourth-quarter spot for hot brand Izod's PerformX sportswear line, featuring "Amazing Race" winner and model Tyler Denk, first ran over the holidays. Izod, Mr. Kelly notes, has gone from bankruptcy to a $1 billion brand in the nine years Phillips-Van Heusen has owned it.