Super Bowl commercials are the most coveted spots that companies vie for and are ready to pay millions for a 30-second slot. This year being an election year added some more gravitas to the scramble to get on to the Super Bowl ad mania. The San Francisco 49ers faced the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIV on Sunday. A 30-second commercial spot for Super Bowl this year that aired on Fox is about $5.6 million going by news reports and AdAge, the bible for all things advertising.
Fox reportedly sold out all its ads in November itself. It is believed that Fox paid NLF around 1.1 billion dollars for the rights to air the game.
‘tis raining money for Fox
Fox reportedly sold out all its ads in November itself. It is believed that Fox paid NLF around 1.1 billion dollars for the rights to air the game.
The scramble for slots is to get a share of the eyeballs that are glued to their idiot boxes during this almost national ritual of the United States. Last year’s Super Bowl match drew in 98.2 million viewers to CBS, which won the air telecast battle, according to Nielsen figures. This was the lowest number of viewers that Super Bowl has attracted in the last 9 years. The viewership easily crossed 100 million in the last few years.
There are floater spots that are up for grabs. Floaters are time outs when the channel takes a commercial break from live coverage due to unforeseen happenings in the game. The long-form ads or the 45-second ones are 28 in number for now. Many advertisers want this slot for longer narrative-type ads.
This year we saw some old names and some new with Facebook and Walmart making their debut into the hallowed halls of Super Bowl advertising. Other newbies include Genesis, the automaker, Hershey/Reese, and Pop Tarts from Kellogg’s.
Celebrity endorsements is the popular route, and it is a mutually beneficial existence. Super Bowl is a big enough name to attract the legends as well as newbies. You saw Martin Scorsese holding a Coca-Cola energy drink. Bill Murray advertised Jeep through his Groundhog Day persona. Molly Ringwald held forth on how good avocados taste. MC Hammer was selling Cheetos. Doritos had Lil Nas X and actor Sam Elliot. Mountain Dew had Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad fame and Blackish actor Tracee Ellis Ross.
Snacks brands traditionally are the front runners at the event, and this year too, nine brands were in the fray, up from 5 last year. Technology and insurance ads are also on the rise.
Both Mike Bloomberg and Donald Trump aired 60-second ads during Super Bowl 54, and they had shelled out millions of dollars for the spots. Last year there were 42 commercials in total, but the number varies every year.
Humor seems to be the most popular tone to adopt in Super Bowl commercials, but it needs a little more than laughs to get people to invest in your brand. Good marketing involves more strategy than throwing in a comedic element.
Celebrity endorsements is the popular route, and it is a mutually beneficial existence. Super Bowl is a big enough name to attract the legends as well as newbies. You saw Martin Scorsese holding a Coca-Cola energy drink. Bill Murray advertised Jeep through his Groundhog Day persona. Molly Ringwald held forth on how good avocados taste. MC Hammer was selling Cheetos. Doritos had Lil Nas X and actor Sam Elliot.
Mountain Dew had Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad fame and Blackish actor Tracee Ellis Ross.
Sylvester Stallone, Chris Rock, Chris Evans, John Krasinski, and many more appearances lined up to keep the viewers celeb happy.
Movies that were being touted on Super Bowl: Fast and Furious 9 and Sonic the Hedgehog, Spongebob, Balck Widow and Amazon Prime’s Hunters.
Super Bowl Ads Teased or Released to Date
Here is a look at some of the advertisements that have been teased or released to date.
Hyundai
Hyundai has taken the humor and celebrity route with Chris Evans and John Krasinski using their bean town accents (both are from Boston) to get laughs. They play off on the phrase “Smaht Pahk” ( South Park cartoon).
Hey there, Chris Evans!
It has teased a 60-second spot with two Rocks featuring—Sylvester Stallone and Chris rock. The tagline is “Get ready to Rock”
Planter’s Mr Peanut
The ad depicts Mr Peanut blowing himself atop a mountainside to save the lives of actors Matt Walsh and Wesley Snipes but the owners are taking a second look following Kobe Bryant’s untimely death in a helicopter crash recently, according to reports.
Introducing Baby Nut.
Walmart
It will feature on Super Bowl for the first time and bring some famous visitors to the store. 12 “visitors” from famous TV shows and movies will touch down at a Walmart store to collect all they need.
Genesis
The automaker, again appearing for the first time in the Super Bowl, have the celebrity couple John Legend and Crissy Teigen introducing the GV80 sports utility vehicle.
Chrissy is not happy with John’s shenanigans!
Amazon Alexa
Amazon comes back with Alexa this year featuring the couple Ellen DeGeneres and Portia De Rossi talking about how people lived before Alexa.
Google returns to the Super bowl ad world. It first appeared in 2010 and in 2020 it comes with a narrative to advertise its Google Assistant. It is a story of an old man using the GA to remember his wife, Loretta.
Microsoft
Microsoft will air a 60-second spot in the game. The ad will feature Katie Sowers, a coach for the San Francisco 49ers, the first woman coach to do so in a Super Bowl.
Pepsi
Pepsi takes a shot at Coke. It stars Missy Elliott and H.E.R. remaking the Rolling Stones classic “Paint it Black,” and repainting a Coke lookalike can in red to black, the color of the new can for Pepsi Zero Sugar.
The Super Bowl is too good an opportunity to pass up to showcase brands, creativity and might. Limited spots have pushed ad rates in the vicinity of the budgets of whole movies. Prices have jumped up by 50 per cent in the last decade when a 30-secondn spot cost around $3.5 million.
Michael Priem, founder and CEO of ad-tech firm Modern Impact calls the Super Bowl an anomaly. “It is a rare occurrence that pulls us all together to view content at the same time in astonishing numbers,” he told Deadline. “It’s become a celebration of present culture as much as it’s a sporting event.”
With this big sporting event being followed by the Big Oscar Night, brands need to cash in on visibility and recall. The question is do they score? The return on investment from these types of big-budget ads in terms of connect, let alone retailer ship is not very clear. Bu the power of television cannot be ignored, and Super Bowl attracts almost $ 70 billion in ads annually.
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