The Super Bowl is big business. Yes, there’s a game between two teams you may or may not care about and a halftime show that may or may not meet your expectations, but in advertising, we know this is about getting in front of as many people at one time as possible. Even more, it’s about keeping the conversation going about the brand before, during and after the game.
Not only does it cost a minimum of $7M to run a national spot in the Super Bowl, but there is also a lot of money spent in creating that spot – from famous (i.e. costly) spokespeople to top quality production. Approximately 123 million people watched last year’s game, so when advertisers commit to a spot, it must not only be good, but more importantly, impactful and memorable.
Long gone are the days of waiting until that faithful Sunday to see who spent the big bucks to show up during the game. While some advertisers keep the actual spot under wraps until the actual game, there now are teaser campaigns, including social posts, “leaked” information about the spot as well as pre-game spots across multiple video platforms. A spot must have a campaign behind it – from social teasers to an ongoing story arc, advertisers work to get the most out of this platform and this one time of year when nearly all eyes are watching the same thing. Hoping for a viral moment or buzz after the game is not good enough.
For many of the Super bowl advertisers, the cost is actually a small part of their overall annual advertising budgets. Those budgets range from $100-$250M per year. It makes sense for Anheuser-Busch and FanDuel to take advantage of this stage, and boy, have they! Who else is cheering for Eli to fulfill his Kick of Destiny?
But for the company that only has a budget not much bigger than the going price of a Super Bowl spot, which now is going for $8M, plus production and any “teaser spots” gets an advertiser closer to a $10M-$12M price tag, is it worth it? For that cost, advertisers can run a targeted, multi-month, multi-channel ad campaign – giving you the holy grail of reach AND frequency. Especially today, as our effective frequency has gone from three exposures to 12 to actually stick in someone’s brain. The true challenge of advertising still persists – you need to be there when the consumer is ready and willing to see your message.
So why do brands decide to jump into the deep end and commit to a very expensive :30 – :60 window to show how much you should want to buy their “insert product here”? Some new advertisers this year include everything from MSC Cruises (welcome to the game Drew Barrymore and Orlando Bloom) to Bosch Industries (generative AI is here, get used to it), who do not historically have large marketing budgets within the U.S. Will people rush to their computers to book a cruise? Will they decide then and there that the next time they need to buy a smart bike, a refrigerator or even automotive parts, remember that Bosch has what they’re looking for?
What will MCS Cruises and other brands do to continue the effort? That’s the real challenge in today’s world. No longer are people impressed or moved to action by one spot; by one campaign. We have so many sources of information and entertainment that if we don’t see the message multiple times and/or the very exact moment we need or are intrigued by something, will being in this game give brands the payout they should expect from such an investment?
Perhaps that is why we see the same advertisers return year after year – they can afford a spot as part of their much bigger marketing efforts and have the resources to launch a campaign that will not disappear after the game, but is instead the start of an annual effort to keep our attention and entice us with their products WHEN we’re ready to buy. It’s a big leap and perhaps risk for MSC Cruises to launch with a Super Bowl spot unless they can continue the effort – will this spot actually book $10M worth of cruises for this line?
This is the quandary for every advertiser. Will it make the investment back? Will we be the hero or the dud of the event? It’s a risk and one we tackle (pun intended) every year for our marketing efforts. Will the creative and the media come together in that perfect synchronicity to capture the audience and move them to action? For the CPG brands out there, it’s one piece to a very large effort to convince you drink their beer, eat their chips, wear their shoes. But for some newcomers, we’ll wait to see if they invested wisely. One guarantee is that the entire industry will Monday morning quarterback the hell out of it.