(Modified on 1/18/2011 to correct headquarters location of InfoSpace in 3rd to last paragraph)

The Cedar Rapids-based provider of TaxACT tax filing solutions will buy some of the year’s most expensive television time to tout its free filing service to football fans.

The Super Bowl spots for the company’s TaxACT Free Federal Edition filing solution will expound on “the human truth of free,” the company said.

TaxACT is a product of Cedar Rapids-based 2nd Story Software, which pioneered free online tax filing services.

The company’s main competitor “has made a habit of trying to create confusion in the marketplace” about free filing, and specifically what kind of taxpayers it will benefit, said Kris Peterson, 2nd Story Software’s vice president of marketing.

Peterson said 2nd Story’s Super Bowl ad was developed to “cut through the clutter and deliver the message that this is for everybody.”

While 2nd Story’s free edition has been a success, the company derives revenues from state filing editions of its software and from an enhanced federal edition that lets customers import last year’s return and use additional tools.

The advertisement will be a 30-second spot, which according to many sources will cost around $3.5 million on this year’s Super Bowl.

Peterson said 2nd Story was willing to invest in Super Bowl advertising because the Super Bowl is at a time of year when Americans have received their W-2 forms and begun thinking about tax filing, because it creates brand awareness for TaxACT, and because the Super Bowl’s audience of 88.7 million viewers between 18 and 54 is a good demographic match for TaxACT’s target market.

The Super Bowl commercial will be the first not only for Second Story Software, but for Cedar Rapids-based advertising agency J.W. Morton & Associates, the Mechaniks production company of Venice, Calif., and Independent post production company of Milwaukee.

The advertisements use a “courageous and gutsy story” to put viewers in touch with the feelings of being free on emotional, physical and psychological levels, according to J.W. Morton & Associates President Dave Morton. He praised Second Story for being bold and confident in the advertising message.

“The Super Bowl is bold and so is the concept,” he said.

Wayne Craig, director at the Mechaniks production company, also gushed about the concept. He said everyone involved in the project “was infected by the story and bought into the vision.”

Second Story plans to keep the plot under wraps until it is aired on Feb. 5, but is using email, social media and a web mini-site to build up some anticipation.

The campaign included the Feel the Free Fridays Sweepstakes launched on January 5, the same day final versions of TaxACT were released, and the launch Tuesday of a new interactive TaxACT website, freetaxact.com, that offers a chance to engage other sweepstakes participants.

The commercial will be available for viewing on the site immediately after airing on game day.

Second Story Software has been in the news a lot lately. Last year H & R Block announced plans to buy the online tax filing software business for $287.5 million, but a judge ruled the merger would violate U.S. antitrust laws. Earlier this month, InfoSpace, a Bellevue, Wash.-based web search company, announced that it would acquire 2nd Story instead, for the same price.

The advertisements featured on the Super Bowl are typically some of the year’s most creative, as advertisers seek to stand out in an avalanche of heavy-hitter advertisements.

Go Daddy, the web hosting and domain name registration company known for its annual efforts to get comical, sexually suggestive commercials past network screeners, will have two 30-second ads in the Super Bowl and one in the pregame show this year, according to Advertising Age. Go Daddy has a growing Corridor presence in Hiawatha.