For the second consecutive year, Madison Avenue relied on a massive parade of celebrities to capture consumer attention, foregoing in many cases the social messages and dynamic creative concepts that have generated chatter in the past. Where the Super Bowl was once the setting for Apple’s still-talked-about 1984 commercial or Procter & Gamble’s clever insertion of Tide into a bevy of ads, it’s now become a place for formulaic cameos of famous faces. “It’s like a celebrity arms race,” says Simon Bruyn, executive creative director at Mother, an independent agency. “It’s like one celebrity isn’t enough.”
The debut of a Ben Affleck-led campaign for Dunkin’ led to record sales — but can brands like Uber Eats prove that the sky-high cost of A-list endorsements is still worthwhile? Pictured: Jennifer Aniston in an Uber Eats ad.
The Kansas City Chiefs were crowned victorious over the San Francisco 49ers in this year’s Super Bowl — and, off the field, big-name advertisers competed for viewers’ attention with celebrity-filled, glitzy messages. Pictured: Ice Spice sips on Starry soda for PepsiCo.
With ratings ebbing and business models crumbling, last year’s edition registered the largest audience of any TV event in history, with 115.1 million viewers (albeit with the caveat of revised Nielsen methodology). This year’s matchup between the San Francisco 49ers and the Taylor Swift-enhanced Kansas City Chiefs could bring somehow make the big game even bigger.
The industry rallied to pull off often epic productions during a pandemic — with wildly mixed results.
Exclusives
When Mountain Dew released a teaser of its new Super Bowl commercial last week, the clip featured a computer-animated dog made of watermelons — and no people. That was by design. With COVID-19 still spreading, Mountain Dew’s ad agency made the spot with as small a crew as possible and as far apart as the team could keep them. Producers watched the shoot from home. A backup crew was ready to replace anyone who tested positive.
A 60-second spot from Venables Bell & Partners will mark the automaker’s 10th year as an advertiser during the big game. The spot will run in the second quarter and will carry an electrification theme that includes all-new Audi e-tron models.
With one month to go, the Big Game market has once again been strong for CBS, according to sources familiar with the network’s Super Bowl ad sales. The network is receiving north of $5 million per 30-second spot.
Rates for a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl have climbed 87% since 2008 despite a significant uptick in the number of spots and the length of ad pods, according to an analysis by Kantar Media. Brands paid an average of $2.8 million for an ad in 2008, but last year that number exceeded $5 million.
The NFL has lost a Canadian appeals court battle to stop the CTV network from being forced to air United States Super Bowl telecast commercials.
GoDaddy, the web-services provider with the upstart attitude, is making a return to Super Bowl advertising after sitting out Super Bowl 50 this year. The company plans to run a single 30-second commercial in the first half of the game.
CBS To Air 2nd Super Bowl Commercials Special
Vote For The Best Super Bowl Commercial
Media people debate the worthiness of Super Bowl advertising each year with a fervor usually reserved for discussions involving politics or religion. With that in mind, here is a list of the five best arguments for and against Super Bowl advertising.
Decade Of Super Bowl Spend Tops $2B
Kantar Media-compiled historical advertising trend data reveals increasing prices, growing competitive clutter, expanding social media footprint and high sponsorship value for the Big Game.
The rise of digital advertising, and video in particular, has changed the way Super Bowl advertising is done. This change has come fast though — within the last five years — which means there are still misunderstandings about the new age of Super Bowl advertising. Here are the five most common myths and why we should stop promoting them
Bye, bye baby: For the the first time since 2007, viewers won’t see the savvy talking spokestot, or any E-Trade ad, in the big game.
The advent of social media has changed the tone of Super Bowl advertising, perhaps irrevocably. Marketers fear consumers stop talking about Super Bowl commercials within 24 to 48 hours of the game’s end. But by running video teasers weeks or even months before game time, they can generate tweets, posts and likes — and perhaps even collect names, email addresses and twitter feeds for future marketing purposes.
The Best Super Bowl Ads For Sonic Branding
Super Bowl ads on TV have immense reach and cost big money. Last year’s Super Bowl XLVI attracted 111.3 million viewers, making it the most watched U.S. telecast of all time. This level of exposure doesn’t come cheap, however, as advertisers spent an average of $3.4 million for a 30-second spot, up more than $300,000 from 2011, according to Nielsen.
Year’s Most Buzzworthy Super Bowl Ads
Much of the pre-game attention is going to Doritos, Chrysler and the milk mustache folks, who enlisted The Rock for their first ad. Michael Pavone, president-CEO at Pavone, the Harrisburg, Pa., agency behind Spotbowl.com, talks about which advertisers are garnering the most pre-game buzz, how social media has upped the Super Bowl spotlight, and what ad strategies are most effective.
After a year celebrating its 100th birthday, Oreo is poised to end the big bash with a Super Bowl spot.
Moonves Eyes $4 Million Super Bowl Spot
CBS Corp. CEO Les Moonves on Wednesday made a bold prediction about the broadcaster’s Super Bowl prospects, telling investors that his sales team will set an all-time unit cost record in 2013. Speaking on the media conglomerate’s 4Q earnings call, Moonves said he anticipates landing “a potential $4 million per spot” in Super Bowl XLVII, slotted for New Orleans on Feb. 3, 2013.
Backstory: KNOP’s Will Ferrell Super Bowl Ad
In the age of Twitter and Facebook, many Super Bowl viewers will use the commercial breaks to go online and see what people are saying about the game. This year, advertisers want them to tweet about their favorite commercials as well.
The NBC New York O&O can ring up an extra $2 million in ad revenue for the Super Bowl thanks to the New York Giants’ trip to the NFL Championship Game, industry sources say. The added revenue comes from jacked-up rates on local TV spots that are set aside by the NBC network for its stations.
The rookie sponsors include two luxury car brands, Acura and Lexus; Century 21, the real estate firm; Dannon; and the H&M retail chain.
Relativity Media will buy a commercial spot during the Super Bowl to advertise its military action film Act of Valor, joining three of Hollywood’s six major studios in buying costly promotional time during the most popular sporting event of the year.
We’re not choosing the best or worst ads in Super Bowl history, just the ones that advanced the niche practice of Super Bowl marketing. Whether they pushed the pop-culture envelope, captured consumer attitudes for a moment or forced changes in how the big game’s ads are run, the following represent the commercials we think spurred the most movement.
Following its Super Bowl debut last year, the electronics retailer has once again purchased a 30-second spot in this year’s game, with plans to focus on a new launch.
While it’s anyone’s guess when (or if) the 2011-12 National Football League season will kick off, NBC has already moved a significant chunk of its most valuable inventory. According to a number of sources, NBC has sold nearly half of its available Super Bowl XLVI spots, cutting deals with a number of repeat clients looking to protect their positions in the big game. Precise ad rates are unavailable, yet NBC is believed to be commanding rates above and beyond Fox’ year-ago average price of $3 million per 30-second spot.
Chrysler dealers, psyched by the Super Bowl spot featuring rapper Eminem, are trying to turn the commercial’s buzz into sales. They are buying local ads, blasting e-mails to customers, printing T-shirts and reaching out to customers in other ways to ride the wave.
Groupon is ending a campaign that made its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, days after making changes in response to considerable criticism of the ads. The decision is a major setback for Groupon, the purveyor of online discount coupons, because the campaign represented its first national mainstream advertising.
Chrysler was one of nine automakers that took advantage of advertising’s biggest and most expensive showcase, at $3 million for 30 seconds, to try to show they’re back after two tough years for the industry. A two-minute ad for Chrysler starring Eminem and a Volkswagen ad featuring a mini-Darth Vader that went viral before it even aired were two of the most talked-about spots during advertising’s big night.
Super Bowl advertisers Audi AG and General Motors Co. may end up getting a bargain for 30-second spots costing a record $3 million or more, if the audience for the Fox telecast reaches new highs as forecast.
With ad time in the Super Bowl sold out, the pre-game festivities are taking on some of the Big Game’s usual luster. Kraft Foods’ Ritz crackers, General Motors’ Chevrolet, Yum Brands’ Pizza Hut, Ford Motor and E-Trade are among the marketers using the early hoopla to supplement their Super Bowl perches or participate in the Super Bowl without actually buying a $3 million commercial.
