It appeared the metal-driven formula of traditional car ads wouldn’t be used much this year — and then Alfa Romeo came out of nowhere and burned rubber all over everybody’s screens with three ads for the new Giulia sedan.
The overtime contest contained 51 minutes and 30 seconds of advertising and promos; ads accounted for 23% of the total broadcast. Anheuser-Busch InBev was the top advertiser with 3:30 minutes of ad time. Auto was the lead category during the game, accounting for 8 spots and 7:00 minutes of ad time. Marketers sharply reduced their use of 60-second+ ads, perhaps as a concession to the rising cost of ad time. Only 14 spots were at least this long, the fewest since 2011.
National advertising sales from Fox’s Super Bowl LI generated $432.4 million, according to iSpot.tv. This total came from 62 brands, with 89 spots, airing 91 times — including four extra commercials that ran in overtime.
In a letter, GNC told Fox it suffered “significant economic and reputational damages,” over the rejection of its Super Bowl spot.
The Super Bowl is a popular destination for commercials showcasing premium water, candy and beer — but politics can make it a difficult forum. 84 Lumber was told to change an ad showing a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, highlighting the difficulty of ensuring a bipartisan broadcast.
The biggest Super Bowl TV commercial now on the air is Humpty Fall, a teaser TV spot for TurboTax with some $4.6 million in estimated national TV media spend, registering 87.9 million total TV impressions — linear, time-shifted, VOD and other networks — according to iSpot.tv.
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From the first live ad to the first virtual reality broadcast to the first local spots sold on the online broadcast, this game is shaping up as a pioneering one, if not a ratings smasher.
Warner/Chappell Music ‘Scores’ Super Bowl Spot
GNC said Tuesday it was notified that it will not be allowed to air the ad it created — or any ad — during the game Sunday because it violates an NFL policy against having supplements advertised during its games.
After a busy weekend in which it locked in a handful of its remaining Super Bowl spots, Fox’s ad sales team heads into the home stretch with just two or three in-game units left to move.
Joel and Ethan Coen have directed their first Super Bowl ad, a 30-second spot for the Mercedes-AMG brand, a new point of differentiation from the luxury automaker.
Fox has asked for changes to a 90-second commercial from building supply company 84 Lumber because the ad featured a border wall.
Director Peter Berg will film, edit and produce the 90-second spot in real time during the game, the automaker says.
Stations: Be Wary Of Using ‘Super Bowl’
In addition to the monies it receives annually for the right to broadcast the Super Bowl, the NFL receives more than $1 billion in income from licensing the use of the Super Bowl trademark and logo. Not surprisingly, the league is extremely aggressive in protecting its golden goose from anything it views as unauthorized efforts to trade off the goodwill associated with the game. Broadcasters have latitude to use the phrase “Super Bowl” in their news and other editorial content, but they need to wary of engaging in advertising and promotion that the NFL may view as trademark or copyright infringement.
For the first time since TV networks have been simultaneously streaming the Super Bowl along with their traditional linear airing of the game, a network will be featuring local advertising from their TV affiliates in the digital broadcast. Fox said its Fox Sports Go digital platform will offer Super Bowl LI, live as a non-authenticated stream with local advertising, partnering with more than 170 Fox affiliates around the country.
More than half of first-time advertisers eschew the big game the following year, which doesn’t speak well to the upcoming game’s ability to offer a strong return on investment.
On Feb. 5, Canadian viewers of the Super Bowl for the first time will be able to watch those flashy Super Bowl ads live on TV for the first time. Before this year, Super Bowl commercials were blocked in Canada because the Canadian broadcaster was allowed to substitute its ads for U.S. ads on the American feed. This year’s change has infuriated the NFL>
No matter what happens in the NFL playoffs, Pittsburgh will have a presence in the Feb. 5 broadcast of Super Bowl LI in Houston. GNC Holdings, whose world headquarters is on Sixth Avenue, Downtown, announced Tuesday it will, for the first time, advertise during the big game as part of its One New GNC brand relaunch.
Fox lags behind where CBS was, with more than a dozen spots still left to sell. It could be a reflection on the NFL’s ratings declines or economic uncertainty. But online sales are hot.
