The ad, narrated by Tom Hanks, features journalists who have been killed or disappeared. They include Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who wrote critically about the Saudi crown prince.
While the New England Patriots bested the L.A. Rams on Sunday in Atlanta during Super Bowl 53, brands were also winning and losing off the field. Some spots, like Google’s ad about its translation service, charmed many viewers. But others like Mint Mobile’s ad about “chunky milk” fell flat.
CBS is almost sold out of its Super Bowl commercial inventory, according to people with knowledge of the network’s sales process, nearing an end to what is always a frenzied process to sew up millions of dollars in advertising revenue. The network has secured agreements for the last few slots it has available for broadcast in Super Bowl 53, the people say.
The world’s largest brewer will not say how much it is spending for nearly six minutes of commercials, but industry sources estimate it is more than $50 million. That is up from the $42 million that Kantar Media said the brewer spent for four minutes of ad time last year. It is only part of the company’s strategy to recapture market share from craft beers and Mexican imports.
Movie studios often use the Super Bowl to drop trailers for their coming blockbusters. Since last year, a rival source of video entertainment has been doing the same. Amazon Prime Video will return to the Super Bowl this year, dropping a 60-second trailer in the third quarter for Hanna, a new drama centered on a powerful young girl who must thwart agents who want to take her down, along with her father. The commercial will show Amazon getting more aggressive in the realm of big-game promotion.
Advertisers are hoping to provide some welcome distraction and entertainment as economic fears persist and the nation’s political climate remains sharply divided. As much as this year’s Super Bowl will be a battle on the field between the New England Patriots and the L.A. Rams, it will be a battle between advertisers over who gets the buzz — and who gets forgotten.
Exclusives
If you think that getting people to advertise during the Super Bowl is easy, think again. In truth, hooking advertisers on TV’s biggest annual event has become a harder sell. The Super Bowl draws more than 100 million viewers annually, resulting in outsize TV ratings and scads of valuable social-media reactions and pass-alongs. And yet, Madison Avenue is vacillating more about whether to buy an ad in the big game than it has in years.
Here’s the pop culture crossover you never knew you needed. For Stella Artois’ Super Bowl LIII ad, the beer brand has brought together two iconic — but very different — characters: Carrie Bradshaw ( Sarah Jessica Parker) from Sex and the City and The Dude (Jeff Bridges) from The Big Lebowski. And, hey man, you know what? This actually makes a lot of sense.
Super Bowl advertisers are continuing the trend of the last several years, holding back creative prior to the game. With a week to go before the big TV NFL event on Feb. 3, 24 brands with 60 pieces of creative — teasers and pre-release Super Bowl commercials — have aired on TV through Jan. 27, totaling $2.9 million in TV spend, down from the same period a year ago.
The meteoric rise of Super Bowl ad prices looks to be over. CBS., which will broadcast the big game from Atlanta on Feb. 3, is selling 30-second commercials for $5.1 million to $5.3 million, people familiar with the matter said. That’s roughly the same price as last year, when NBC sold them for $5.24 million, according to research firm Kantar Media.
Coca-Cola is pulling back from the Super Bowl after an 11-year run, opting to run a commercial just before kickoff of the CBS broadcast of the game on Feb. 3, but not in the event itself.
U.S. states are increasingly legalizing marijuana, but the drug still isn’t mainstream enough to convince CBS to let a cannabis company run a Super Bowl ad in 2019. Acreage Holdings, a New York-based cannabis firm that made a splash last year when it added former House Speaker John Boehner to its board, says that CBS rejected its proposed 30-second spot.
Ever since the NFL launched Thursday Night Football, the Super Bowl has been a harder sell for advertisers. But CBS says it has commitments for “more than 90%” of its available commercial inventory with about a month to go before the game.
InBev will run eight ads, totaling 5 minutes, 30 seconds, for five brands: Budweiser, Bud Light, Michelob Ultra, Stella Artois and Bon & Viv Spiked Seltzer.
Pringles, which advertised in the Super Bowl for the first time in 2018, will be back for Super Bowl LIII next year, the Kellogg’s brand says. The brand’s game campaign will also include digital media, social media and PR.
This year’s Super Bowl advertisers are trying hard to steer clear of everything from politics to the #MeToo movement with lightly humorous ads that don’t offend. The goal is to capture the attention of the 111 million-plus viewers expected to tune in Sunday when the Philadelphia Eagles take on the New England Patriots. Thirty-second slots are going for more than $5 million for airtime alone.
